Skip to main content
Main

To Pot Trout or Grilse

A fish pot made by seasoning trout or grilse with spices, clarified butter, and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pot Trout or Grilse

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix the spices and salt thoroughly.

  2. Clean the fish and remove the heads, fins, and tails.

  3. Place 1 teaspoon of the spice mixture into each fish.

Bake

  1. Lay the fish in a deep earthen jar with the backs downwards.

  2. Cover the fish with clarified butter and tie a paper over the jar's mouth.

  3. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for 8 hours until the backbone is tender.

  4. Remove the fish from the jar and place them in a milk pan with the backs upwards.

  5. Cover with a board and place a heavy weight on top.

Store

  1. Once completely cold, transfer the fish to fresh jars, smooth with a knife, and cover with clarified butter.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the fish.
Sea salt
Seasons the fish and helps preserve it through the long cure.
Clarified butter
Seals the fish from air and adds richness and moisture.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, sweet aroma that complements the fish.

The step that matters

Slow baking until the backbone is tender. Long, gentle heat softens the bones and lets the spices and salt penetrate the flesh evenly. Too little time leaves the backbone firm, and too much heat can dry or toughen the fish.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, pepper, nutmeg, ginger, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, nutmeg, ginger, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes