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Boiled Fish

A whole fish boiled with potatoes, served with drawn butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fish

  1. Place the fish in a fish boiler on a tin platter.

  2. Lower the platter into boiling water and cover.

  3. Add potatoes around the fish.

  4. Once the fish is tender, lift the platter to drain.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with parsley.

  2. Serve the fish and potatoes with drawn butter mixed with chopped parsley.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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, cooked gently in boiling water until tender and flaky.
Potatoes
Absorb flavour from the cooking water and add starchy bulk alongside the fish.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and moistens the mild fish.

The step that matters

Lift the platter once the fish is tender. Fish cooked past tender becomes dry and falls apart, so checking for doneness and draining promptly keeps the flesh moist and intact.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, potato, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, butter. 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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