Skip to main content
Main

Carp, Stewed

A stewed carp dish simmered with stock, claret, mushrooms, onions, herbs, nutmeg, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Carp, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish and onions

  1. Wash the fish in vinegar and water, then cut it into thick slices.

  2. Slice the onions and fry them in 2 oz of hot butter until brown.

Stew the fish

  1. Add the stock, wine, mushrooms, herbs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to the pan and warm it up.

  2. Add the fish and simmer gently for 30 to 40 minutes.

  3. Remove the fish and keep it warm.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Knead the flour and remaining butter into a smooth paste, then add it to the pan.

  2. Simmer and stir until the sauce is smooth.

  3. Place the fish on a hot dish, strain the sauce over it, and garnish with heated mushrooms, fried roe, and toast.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming flaky and tender as it simmers gently in the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the stock and wine into a smooth sauce when kneaded with butter and stirred.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and is used to brown the onions and bind the flour paste.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce as it reduces with the stock.
Onions
Browning in hot butter builds sweetness and savoury depth that carries into the sauce.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce while it simmers.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter paste. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps into lumps. Kneading it with butter first coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly, and stirring while it simmers lets the sauce thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, mushroom, butter, parsley, thyme, nutmeg, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, mushroom, butter, parsley, thyme, nutmeg, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes