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Granade of Fish

A casserole of fish, sweetbread, artichoke, oysters, truffles, and forcemeat baked in buttered paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 226 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Granade of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites, reserving 1 teaspoon for later use.

  2. Remove bones and fins from the red mullet and sole, cutting them into 1‑inch wide strips.

  3. Stew the sweetbread, artichoke, oysters, and truffles in butter for 15 minutes, then let cool.

Assemble

  1. Line a 5‑6 inch casserole with bacon slices, placing carrot bits in the center.

  2. Layer the fish strips over the bacon, alternating colors, then add half the forcemeat.

  3. Add the sweetbread mixture and cover with the remaining forcemeat, smoothing it with the reserved egg white.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with buttered paper, place the lid on, and bake for 20 minutes.

  2. Turn the granade onto the lid to drain, carefully remove the bacon, and serve hot with veal gravy.

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. Artichoke + carrottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Artichoke + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together240 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Bind and smooth the forcemeat topping, helping it set into a neat surface when baked.
Forcemeat
Forms a soft, set layer that holds the fish and sweetbread together in the casserole.
Fat bacon
Lines the dish and adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the fish as it cooks.
Butter
Enriches the sweetbread, artichoke, oysters and truffles, adding richness and aroma.
Red mullet
Forms the delicate fish layers, becoming tender and moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stewing the sweetbread mixture. Stewing gently in butter cooks the sweetbread and oysters through without toughening them, and the mixture must cool before layering so it does not melt the forcemeat or make the casserole watery.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, veal, artichoke, oyster, truffle, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, veal, artichoke, oyster, truffle, butter. 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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