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Sauce

Marinade for Fish

A savory fish sauce made by simmering vegetables, herbs, spices, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Marinade for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the carrots, onions, shallots, garlic, sweet herbs, parsley, and butter.

  2. Cook slowly over low heat for a few minutes until softened.

  3. Pour in the cider or white wine and boil for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Add the peppercorns, allspice, cloves, and salt.

  5. Simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  6. Strain the marinade and it is ready for use.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider or white wine
Provides the acidic liquid base that carries the aromatics and flavour into the fish.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth as they soften and cook down slowly.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and body to the liquid as they simmer.
Butter
Softens the vegetables and carries fat-soluble aroma compounds from the herbs and spices.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 1.5 hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavour slowly from the vegetables and spices without reducing the liquid too much or turning bitter. A hard boil can evaporate the wine and make the spices harsh.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, shallot, garlic, parsley, butter, cider):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, shallot, garlic, parsley, butter, cider. 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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