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A Strong Fish Gravy

A strong gravy made from fish, 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: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Strong Fish Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin or scale the fish, gut, and wash them thoroughly.

  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. Boil until the mixture is rich and flavorful.

  3. Melt the butter in the saucepan, then sprinkle in a little flour and stir until browned.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels or fish
Provides the main body and rich flavor of the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and adds browning when cooked in butter.
Toasted bread
Adds body and helps give the gravy a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in butter. Flour cooked in melted butter must be stirred constantly so it browns evenly without scorching. Scorched flour gives a bitter taste and dark specks, while properly browned roux thickens smoothly and adds a nutty depth to the gravy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pepper, lemon, butter, walnut, 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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