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Halibut Stewed

A stew of halibut head and shoulders simmered in fish broth, mushroom ketchup, vinegar, onions, anchovy, garlic, sweet herbs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Halibut Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a stew-pan, combine fish broth, mushroom ketchup, vinegar, onions, anchovy, garlic, sweet herbs, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil and let it stew for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the halibut head and shoulders to the strained broth and stew until tender.

  2. Thicken the sauce with butter and flour before serving.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it cooks in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with butter, giving it body.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour so it thickens smoothly.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the broth during long stewing.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter and flour before serving. Flour needs to be cooked in fat and simmered in liquid to lose its raw taste and thicken evenly. Adding it straight to hot liquid without mixing first can cause lumps.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, mushroom, ketchup, vinegar, onion, anchovy, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, mushroom, ketchup, vinegar, onion, anchovy, garlic. 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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