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Stewed Lampreys

Stewed lampreys simmered with cider, gravy, spices, and a walnut ketchup sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Lampreys

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the lampreys

  1. Clean the lampreys in boiling salted water, then drain.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with a small amount of cider and stew gently for about 30 minutes.

  3. Add strong gravy.

  4. Season with mace, ground cloves, salt, black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne.

  5. Continue stewing until tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Carefully remove the lampreys and place them on a hot dish.

  2. Garnish with horseradish.

  3. Mix port wine and walnut ketchup with the cooking liquid.

  4. Dredge in flour.

  5. Stir over heat until thick.

  6. Pour the gravy over the fish.

  7. Serve the gravy separately in a sauceboat.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cider + port winetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lampreys
Main protein; firm flesh becomes tender through gentle, slow stewing.
Cider
Adds moisture and mild acidity to the stewing liquid.
Strong gravy
Provides savoury body and depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and rich depth to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the gravy over heat until thick. Flour must be heated while stirring so its starch swells and thickens the sauce smoothly, without lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, clove, pepper, port wine, walnut, ketchup, flour):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, clove, pepper, port wine, walnut, ketchup, flour. 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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