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Stewed Carp

A stewed carp simmered in beef gravy with onion, cloves, spices, port wine, anchovies, mustard, walnut ketchup, and butter‑flour mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Carp

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Lay the fish in a stew-pan with beef gravy, onion, cloves, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, and port wine.

  2. Simmer covered until nearly done.

  3. Add chopped anchovies, mustard, and walnut ketchup.

  4. Shake the pan and let the gravy boil for a few minutes.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Is the main protein that is gently cooked through in the gravy.
Beef gravy
Provides the liquid base and savory body of the sauce.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the sauce, adding deep savory flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich gravy.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the gravy as it boils, giving it a smooth, glossy body.

The step that matters

Boiling the gravy after adding the butter and flour. Flour-thickened sauces need enough heat to activate the starch and thicken fully. Boiling for a few minutes cooks out the raw flour taste, and stirring or shaking prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, clove, pepper, port wine, mustard, ketchup):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, clove, pepper, port wine, mustard, ketchup. 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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