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A Strong Fish Gravy

A gravy made by simmering fish with water, toasted bread, mace, pepper, herbs, lemon peel, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Strong Fish Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin or scale the fish, gut them, and wash them to remove grit.

  2. Cut the fish into small pieces and place them in a saucepan.

Make the gravy

  1. Cover the fish with water and add the toasted bread, mace, whole pepper, sweet herbs, and lemon peel.

  2. Bring to a boil and let it simmer until rich and flavorful.

  3. Add the butter to the saucepan according to the amount of gravy; if using 1 pint, use a piece the size of a walnut.

  4. Melt the butter, then sprinkle in the flour and stir until browned.

  5. Strain the gravy into the saucepan and let it boil for a few minutes.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main flavour and body of the gravy as it simmers in the water.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with the flour forms a roux that thickens the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter until browned.
Toasted bread
Adds body and a toasted aroma to the simmered liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the flour and butter. Stirring the flour into melted butter forms a roux; cooking it until browned adds nutty flavour and colour, but it can scorch if left unattended, and it must be cooked enough to remove raw flour taste before the liquid is added.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, pepper, parsley, lemon, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pepper, parsley, lemon, butter, flour. 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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