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Fish Stew

A stew of white fish fillets simmered with a sauce of butter, onion, spices, and beaten eggs, served with fish balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Fish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the fish, then cut it into neat fillets.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from some smaller pieces, and coarsely chop the fish to fill 2 tablespoons.

  3. Add breadcrumbs, parsley, lemon rind, salt, and pepper to the chopped fish, bind with a little beaten egg, and shape into small balls.

Make the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, fry the onion slightly, then add a pinch each of ginger, mace, cayenne, and a little salt and pepper.

  2. Add the filleted fish, barely cover with hot water, and bring to a boil.

  3. Place the forcemeat balls on top, cover with greased paper to retain steam, and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish, strain the cooking liquid over the remaining beaten eggs, and return to the pan.

  2. Season to taste, add lemon juice, and stir over low heat until the sauce thickens, being careful not to let it boil.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish and serve.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the fish balls and thicken the sauce when stirred over low heat.
Butter
Fat that cooks the onion and carries the spices, adding richness to the stew.
White fish
Forms the main body of the stew and the fish balls, giving a delicate flaky texture.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help the chopped fish hold together as forcemeat balls.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory flavor as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Keeping the sauce from boiling. Beaten egg thickens gently as it warms; if it boils, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy and thin.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, parsley, lemon, egg, butter, onion, ginger):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, lemon, egg, butter, onion, ginger. 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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