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Fish

A simple boiled fish seasoned with coarse sea salt and vinegar, often using cod, haddock, or whiting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,036 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. If the fish is not cleaned, ensure it is slit low enough and thoroughly washed.

  2. If using cod, haddock, or whiting, place a little salt in their gills.

  3. Hang the fish for a few hours before cooking.

Cook

  1. Put the fish in cold hard water.

  2. Add coarse sea salt to the boiling water.

  3. For cod, add 2-3 tablespoons of vinegar to firm the flesh.

  4. Bring the water to a boil, skimming carefully.

  5. Add a cup of cold water to reduce heat.

  6. Simmer gently.

  7. Cover the kettle to keep dust off the fish.

  8. To check if the fish is done, use a thin knife to see if it separates easily from the bone.

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. Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Is the main protein; its flesh firms and flakes as it cooks.
Vinegar
Firms the flesh of cod, helping it hold together during boiling.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boiling hard. Vigorous boiling toughens fish proteins and breaks the flesh apart, while gentle simmering cooks it evenly and keeps it tender and intact.

“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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