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Stewed Halibut

Stewed halibut simmered in milk and flour sauce with parsley, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stewed Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Wash the fish.

  2. Place the fish in a saucepan, barely covering it with warm water. Cover the saucepan with a lid.

  3. Simmer slowly for 10 to 15 minutes, or place in a pie dish covered with a plate and stew in the oven.

  4. Remove the fish to a plate.

Make the sauce

  1. Blend the flour smoothly with a little milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into the cooking water, stirring until it boils.

  3. Add the parsley, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and remaining milk.

  4. Return the fish to the sauce for 5 minutes to warm it.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with the sauce poured over it.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently in warm water until flaky.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats and boils.
Milk
Adds creaminess and moisture to the sauce, softening its flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild fish and sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the water. Flour clumps if added without first being blended smooth with milk. Stirring while it comes to a boil lets the starch disperse and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, pepper, lemon):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, pepper, lemon. 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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