Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
To Boil Perch
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wipe or wash the perch to remove slime.
Scrape off the scales and clean the insides thoroughly.
Remove the gills and cut off the fins.
Cook and serve
Place the perch in equal parts of cold and boiling salted water.
Boil for 8 to 10 minutes for smaller perch, or 12 to 15 minutes for larger ones.
Serve on a napkin, garnished with curled parsley, with melted butter or sauce.
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.
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Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Perch
- The main protein; its flesh turns firm and flaky when cooked through in simmering water.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the cooking water so the fish is lightly flavoured as it poaches.
The step that matters
Boiling the perch for the right time. Boiling too long toughens the flesh and dries it out, while stopping too early leaves it undercooked. Smaller and larger fish need different times, so size should guide the timer.
“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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