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Broiled Whitings

A fish cooked in a brine of water, salt, parsley, shallots, and onion, then served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Broiled Whitings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Make a brine with water, coarse sea salt, parsley, shallots, and onion.

  2. Boil the brine for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the brine.

Poach the whitings

  1. Boil the whitings in the strained brine, adding the milk.

  2. Drain the whitings when done.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter.

  2. Add flour, shallots, pepper, and salt to the butter.

  3. Thicken the mixture with cream.

  4. Remove the shallots from the sauce.

  5. Pour the sauce over the whitings.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whitings (in the method)
Main protein, cooked gently in the brine so the flesh turns opaque and stays tender.
Milk
Added to the poaching liquid, it contributes mild richness and a softer flavour to the fish.
Butter
Melted fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth base.
Flour
Starch that swells in the hot butter and thickens the sauce, giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce as it thickens.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to both the brine and the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with cream. Flour thickens only when it is hot and fully mixed into the butter, so the starch swells evenly. Blending it well before adding the cream helps the sauce stay smooth and avoid lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, shallot, milk, butter, flour, pepper, cream):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, shallot, milk, butter, flour, pepper, cream. 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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