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Fish Gravy

A savory sauce made from fish heads, vegetables, and vegetable gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the onion slices and carrot pieces.

  3. Add the fish heads, remains, and bones.

  4. Let the vegetables simmer without burning.

Make the gravy

  1. Moisten with vegetable gravy and bring to a boil.

  2. Thicken the sauce like a meat gravy and use as desired.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + fishtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Carrot + fishtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together315 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Onion
Builds a savory, slightly sweet aromatic base as it softens in the fat.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the flavor base as it cooks down.
Fish heads, remains, and bones
Provide the main fish flavor and, as they simmer, body from dissolved collagen.
Vegetable gravy
Supplies the liquid base that the fish and vegetables flavor and thicken.

The step that matters

Let the vegetables simmer without burning.. Scorched butter and vegetables turn bitter and acrid, and that taste carries into the finished sauce. Gentle heat draws out flavor slowly while keeping the fat and sugars from browning too hard.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, fish):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, fish. 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.

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