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Boiled Fish

A whole fish stuffed with a cracker and butter dressing, boiled and served with drawn butter, parsley, and egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and dress the fish.

  2. Prepare a dressing of rolled crackers, butter, pepper, salt, and sage.

  3. Stuff the fish with the dressing and wrap it in a well-floured cloth.

  4. Tie the cloth securely with twine or sew it shut.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the wrapped fish in a pot of well-salted boiling water.

  2. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes per pound, removing scum as it rises.

  3. Halfway through cooking, add vinegar or lemon juice.

  4. Once cooked, carefully remove the fish, drain, and serve with drawn butter, parsley, and egg sauce.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole fish
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked through by simmering in the water.
Rolled crackers
Bind the stuffing and soak up juices, giving the dressing a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmering the wrapped fish. Keep the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Vigorous boiling can break up the fish and churn the cloth, while gentle heat cooks the flesh evenly. Skimming scum keeps the broth clear.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, pepper, vinegar, parsley, egg, sauce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, pepper, vinegar, parsley, egg, sauce. 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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