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Fried Lampreys

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Lampreys

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bleed the lampreys and save the blood.

  2. Wash them in hot water to remove slime and cut into pieces.

  3. Fry in a little fresh butter until not quite done.

  4. Pour out excess fat and add white wine.

  5. Season with whole pepper, nutmeg, coarse sea salt, sweet herbs, and a bay leaf.

  6. Add capers, a piece of butter rolled in flour, and the saved blood.

  7. Shake the pan often and cover it closely.

  8. Once cooked, remove the lampreys and strain the sauce.

  9. Bring the sauce to a boil, squeeze in lemon juice, and pour over the fish.

  10. Garnish with lemon and serve 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Capers + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, pepper, nutmeg, flour, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, pepper, nutmeg, flour, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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