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Stewed Dace

Stewed Dace is a fish dish prepared by frying and simmering in claret wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Dace

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale the Dace and remove the gills.

  2. Wash the fish thoroughly in plenty of water.

  3. Dry the fish on a cloth and coat lightly with flour.

Cook

  1. Fry the fish in boiling butter until lightly browned.

  2. Add 1 pint of claret to the pan and simmer.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Fish + red winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together99 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + red winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Dace fish
The main protein, which becomes tender and flaky when gently cooked.
Flour
A light coating that helps the fish brown and gives the surface a slight crust.
Butter
Fat for frying that conducts heat well and adds browning and richness.
Claret
Red wine that adds acidity and flavour as it simmers into the pan juices.

The step that matters

Fry the fish in boiling butter until lightly browned. The butter must be hot enough to brown the floured surface quickly. If the fish is crowded or the heat is too low, it steams and turns pale and soggy instead of golden.

“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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