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Stewed Carp

A stew of carp simmered in beef gravy with onions, spices, and port, served with fried bread and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scald and clean the carp, taking care of the roe.

Stew

  1. Place the fish in a stewpan with beef gravy, onion, cloves, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, and port or cider.

  2. Simmer covered until nearly done.

  3. Add chopped anchovies, mustard, walnut ketchup, and butter rolled in flour.

  4. Shake the pan and let the gravy boil for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread, fried roe, horseradish, and lemon.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Is the main protein, cooked gently in the gravy until tender and flaky.
Beef gravy
Provides the liquid and savoury body for the stew.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the gravy as it boils, giving it a smoother, richer body.
Anchovies
Adds deep savoury saltiness that rounds out the gravy.
Walnut ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, slightly tangy flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the butter rolled in flour and boil. Flour-thickened butter only thickens fully when the gravy boils, which cooks out the raw flour taste and sets the sauce. Shaking the pan keeps it moving so it does not scorch or lump.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, beef, onion, clove, pepper, cider, mustard):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, beef, onion, clove, pepper, cider, mustard. 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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