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Dressing Fish

A baked flounder dish seasoned with spices, butter, and a sauce of fish liquor, sherry, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

Dressing Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsThe moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “the moderately quick oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine fish liquor, butter, flour, Jamaica pepper, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, essence of anchovy, and sherry in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the flounders, rubbing them inside and out with common salt and spices.

  2. Let the flounders sit for 12 hours to firm up.

Bake and serve

  1. In a large pot, layer the flounders with parsley leaves and roots, butter, peppercorns, and water.

  2. Cover tightly with brown paper.

  3. Bake in a moderately hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for 3 hours.

  4. Once cooked, drain the liquor from the fish.

  5. Serve the flounders in a deep 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flounders
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they cook gently in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the fish instead of running thin.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Fish liquor
Provides the liquid base of the sauce and carries savoury fish flavour.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that lift the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cover tightly with brown paper before baking. A tight cover traps steam and liquid around the fish, so it cooks gently and stays moist. A loose cover lets liquid escape, which can dry the flesh over the long bake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, pepper, anchovy, sherry, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, pepper, anchovy, sherry, clove. 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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