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To Stew Carp

A carp stew simmered with vinegar, spices, veal stock, and finished with a creamy sauce of egg yolks, cream, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Stew Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carp

  1. Reserve the liver and roe from the carp.

  2. Combine the carp with vinegar, mace, cloves, salt, Jamaica pepper, sliced onions, parsley, basil, thyme, and marjoram. Let soak for 1 hour.

Stew

  1. Transfer the carp and the mixture to a stew pan.

  2. Add the chopped liver, Madeira, and veal stock.

  3. Stew for 1 to 2 hours, depending on the size of the carp.

  4. Remove the fish and keep warm over a pan of hot water.

  5. Strain the cooking liquid.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the strained liquid with beaten egg yolks, cream, flour, and butter. Stir constantly until combined.

  2. Just before serving, add lemon juice to the sauce.

  3. Serve the carp with the sauce and boiled or fried roe.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it stews gently in the liquid.
Egg yolks
Thicken the strained liquid into a smooth, rich sauce as they gently set with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture and mellowing its acidity.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy mouthfeel and rich flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Helps thicken the sauce so it holds together rather than running thin.
Vinegar
Its acidity sharpens the flavour of the fish and balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture to the hot liquid. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and can scramble if they get too hot. Stirring constantly and keeping the heat low keeps the sauce smooth and lightly thickened.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, pepper, onion, parsley, basil, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, pepper, onion, parsley, basil, thyme. 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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