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To Stew Carp or Tench

A stew of carp or tench fried and simmered in wine, water, pickles, ketchup, spices, onion, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Carp or Tench

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dredge the cleaned fish with flour and fry until light brown.

  2. Place the fish in a stewpan with red wine, water, lemon pickle, walnut ketchup, mushroom powder, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the onion and horseradish, cover the pan, and stew gently until the gravy reduces to just cover the fish.

  4. Remove the fish, strain the gravy, thicken it, and pour it over the fish.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Red wine + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together720 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp or tench
Firm white fish that forms the body of the stew and holds its shape during gentle stewing.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy as it reduces.
Flour
Light coating that browns during frying and helps the fish keep its surface intact.
Lemon pickle
Contributes sourness and savoury tang to the gravy.
Walnut ketchup
Adds dark, savoury richness and umami to the gravy.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the gravy during slow stewing.

The step that matters

Stewing until the gravy reduces to just cover the fish. Stewing gently concentrates the liquid's flavour, but if the gravy reduces too far the fish can dry out and stick. Stopping at the right level keeps the fish moist and the sauce well flavoured.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, red wine, lemon, walnut, ketchup, mushroom, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, red wine, lemon, walnut, ketchup, mushroom, pepper. 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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