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Stewed Skate

A stew of skate pieces simmered in a seasoned broth with vinegar, mushroom catsup, Harvey sauce, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Skate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the skate and cut it into square pieces.

  2. Brown the skate pieces in butter in a frying pan.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, boil the skin and parings in 3 pints of water with an onion, pepper, and salt.

  2. Strain the broth and thicken it with a little butter mixed with flour.

  3. Add finely chopped parsley, chives, hot vinegar, mushroom catsup, Harvey sauce, and a little cayenne.

  4. Boil the sauce and add the skate 5 minutes before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Skate
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the fish that cooks gently in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth with butter so the sauce becomes smooth and cohesive.
Butter
Adds richness and browns the skate pieces in the frying pan.
Hot vinegar
Adds sharpness that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Add the skate 5 minutes before serving. Fish is delicate and overcooks quickly; adding it to a boiling sauce only shortly before serving keeps the flesh tender and moist rather than dry and flaky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, flour, parsley, chive, vinegar, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, parsley, chive, vinegar, mushroom. 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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