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Brill a LA Conti

A Brill fish cooked slowly in olive oil, stock, wine, and herbs, finished with a reduced stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brill a LA Conti

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and poach

  1. Score the back of the Brill several times.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the Brill, olive oil, rich stock, white wine, sweet herbs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer slowly over low heat until the fish is cooked, being careful not to cook it too fast.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, place the fish on a dish and keep it hot.

  2. In another saucepan, pour in the rich stock and reduce it to half the quantity.

  3. Add the minced parsley to the reduced stock and pour it over the fish before serving.

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

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

  2. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Olive + white winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. White wine + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Brill
The main fish, which gives the dish its flesh and delicate texture when gently simmered.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness to the cooking liquid, carrying flavour and keeping the fish moist.
Rich stock
Supplies savoury depth to the poaching liquid and, reduced, forms the body of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavour to the poaching liquid, balancing the richness of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly over low heat. Fish proteins toughen and dry out when cooked too fast or at a boil. Gentle, low heat sets the flesh evenly and keeps it moist and tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, white wine, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Basilfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, white wine, pepper. 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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