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Stewed Carp

A stew of carp simmered in beef gravy with onion, spices, anchovies, mustard, walnut ketchup, and butter.

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

Stew the carp

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

  2. Simmer covered until nearly done.

Finish the gravy

  1. Stir in chopped anchovies, mustard, and walnut ketchup.

  2. Add butter rolled in flour, shake the pan. 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
The main fish, which becomes tender as it simmers in the gravy.
Beef gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base that the fish cooks in and flavours it throughout.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it boils.
Anchovies
Melt into the gravy, adding a deep savoury, umami note.
Port wine or cider
Adds acidity and fruity sweetness that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Let the gravy boil after adding the flour-butter. Flour must be heated long enough to cook through and thicken the gravy; boiling for a few minutes dissolves the starch so the sauce turns smooth rather than floury or lumpy.

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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