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God Sounds Broiled with Gravy

Broiled fish served with a mustard‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

God Sounds Broiled with Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sounds

  1. Scald the sounds in hot water and rub them well with coarse sea salt.

  2. Blanch the sounds by removing the black skin and simmering them in cold water until tender.

Cook and serve

  1. Remove the sounds, coat them in flour, and broil them on a grill.

  2. In the meantime, prepare the gravy by boiling it with mustard, a bit of butter rolled in flour, and seasoning with black pepper and salt.

  3. Place the broiled sounds in a dish and pour the gravy over them.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sounds (fish)
Forms the main protein; firm, tender flesh once simmered and broiled.
Flour
Coats the fish for browning and thickens the gravy when rolled with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps thicken the gravy with flour.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts the richness of the gravy.

The step that matters

Blanching the sounds until tender. Simmering in cold water and then broiling needs care: overcooking makes fish flesh dry and flaky, while undercooking leaves it tough and unsafe to eat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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

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