Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Plaice or Flounders

A simple boiled fish dish using plaice or flounder, seasoned with sea salt and saltpetre, served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

To Boil Plaice or Flounders

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and empty the fish, making an incision in the back.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the fish in cold spring water and add coarse sea salt and saltpetre.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then let the fish simmer for 4 to 5 minutes, or longer if needed.

  3. Serve the fish with plain melted 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

What each ingredient does

Plaice or flounder
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the simmering water.
Plain melted butter
Adds richness and fat that complements the mild, lean flesh of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmering the fish. Simmering gently keeps the delicate flesh moist and tender. A hard boil can toughen and break up the fish, so the water should only be kept at a gentle simmer for the stated time, checking for longer if needed.

“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