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Stewed Fish

A simple fish stew made with lemon, onion, herbs, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the fish with salt.

  2. Boil 1 pint of water with the sliced onion until cooked, then pour off the water.

Cook the fish

  1. Add 1 cup of water, lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon salt, pepper, and herbs to the pot.

  2. Boil the fish in this mixture until done, about 20 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and flour to a cream.

  2. Thicken the gravy with the butter and flour mixture.

  3. Serve the fish very hot.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, turning firm and flaky as its proteins set when cooked.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the cooking water as it softens.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the fish and gravy.
Flour
Its starch swells in the hot liquid, thickening the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the gravy.

The step that matters

Boil the fish until done. Fish cooks quickly, and prolonged vigorous boiling can make it tough and break it apart. Watch it closely and stop once it turns opaque and flakes easily.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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