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To Stew Lampreys

A stew of lampreys cooked with port wine, water, spices, horseradish, onion, thickened with flour and butter, finished with lemon pickle and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove 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 Stew Lampreys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lampreys

  1. Clean the lampreys well with coarse sea salt and warm water.

  2. Remove the cartilage from the back.

  3. Season the lampreys with black pepper, Jamaica pepper, grated nutmeg, cloves, and some salt.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Stew the lampreys in equal parts port wine and water with horseradish and onion until tender.

  2. Strain the liquid.

  3. Thicken it with flour and butter.

  4. Add lemon pickle and mushroom ketchup.

  5. Heat it.

Serve

  1. Pour it hot over the lampreys.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lampreys
Are the main protein, becoming tender as they stew slowly in the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps flour thicken the sauce smoothly, with a silky mouthfeel.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the stewing liquid, flavouring the lampreys as they cook.
Onion
Releases savoury sweetness into the stewing liquid, building background flavour.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken it with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked with the butter before or while the strained liquid is added, otherwise it stays floury and lumpy. Heating the sauce fully lets the starch swell and thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, clove, port wine, horseradish, flour, 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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