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Dressed Fish

Fish stewed slowly in fish liquor with parsley, horseradish, and sauces, then garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dressed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the fish slowly in enough fish liquor to cover them, along with the parsley, horseradish, and sauces.

  2. Once the fish are cooked, place them in a deep dish.

  3. Strain the cooking liquor over the fish. If there isn't enough liquor left, add a little more to cover the fish.

  4. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Horseradish + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together259 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + ketchuptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently to stay tender in the stewing liquor.
Fish liquor
Provides the cooking medium and savory base, keeping the fish moist as it stews.
Parsley plants
Add herbal aroma and flavor to the stewing liquor as the roots and leaves cook.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during slow stewing.

The step that matters

Stew the fish slowly. Gentle, slow heat cooks the fish through while keeping its flesh tender and intact. Vigorous boiling can toughen the protein and break the fish apart.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, parsley, horseradish, vinegar, sauce, ketchup):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, horseradish, vinegar, sauce, ketchup. 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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