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To Stew Lamprey, As At Worcester

A stew of lamprey fish cooked with spices, beef gravy, wine, anchovies, and served with bread and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Stew Lamprey, As At Worcester

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the lamprey fish carefully and remove the cartilage from the back.

  2. Season the fish with a small quantity of cloves, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and allspice.

Stew

  1. Place the fish in a small stewpot and cover it with equal parts strong beef gravy and madeira or sherry.

  2. Cover the pot and stew until the fish is tender.

  3. Remove the lamprey and keep it warm.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Boil the remaining liquid with 2 or 3 chopped anchovies, flour, and butter.

  2. Strain the gravy through a sieve and add lemon juice and made mustard.

  3. Serve with slices of bread and horseradish.

  4. If there is spawn, fry it and place it around the dish.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamprey fish
Is the main protein, becoming tender as it stews in the liquid.
Strong beef gravy
Provides the savoury, meaty body of the stewing liquid and the sauce.
Madeira or sherry
Adds a sweet, fortified wine depth to the stewing liquid and sauce.
Anchovies
Adds deep savoury umami that enriches the sauce without tasting strongly of fish.
Flour
Thickens the boiled liquid into a smoother, more cohesive sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that rounds out the sauce's texture and flavour.

The step that matters

Stewing the fish until tender. Lamprey is firm and fatty, and cooking it gently in liquid until just tender keeps it moist. Overcooking toughens the protein and dries the flesh, so check it during stewing rather than trusting a set time.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, clove, nutmeg, pepper, allspice, beef, sherry):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, clove, nutmeg, pepper, allspice, beef, sherry. 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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