Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Carp

A stew of carp simmered with vinegar, spices, herbs, Madeira, veal stock, and finished with egg yolks, cream, flour, butter, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Stew Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale and clean the carp, reserving the liver and roe.

  2. In a deep pan, pour the vinegar over the fish and add mace, cloves, salt, Jamaica pepper, sliced onions, and herbs.

  3. Let the fish soak for 1 hour.

Stew

  1. Transfer the fish to a stew-pan with the vinegar mixture, chopped liver, Madeira, and veal stock.

  2. Stew for 1 to 2 hours, depending on size.

  3. Remove the fish and keep warm over hot water.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid and mix in egg yolks, cream, flour, and butter.

  2. Stir constantly and add lemon juice just before serving.

  3. Boil or fry the roe.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carp
The main protein that the stew is built around.
Vinegar
Acid that flavours the fish during soaking and helps firm its flesh.
Veal stock
Provides body and savoury depth to the cooking liquid.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness and a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly and adding the lemon juice just before serving. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat but curdle if the sauce boils or overheats, so constant stirring and late addition of the acid keep it smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, pepper, onion, parsley, basil, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, pepper, onion, parsley, basil, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes