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How to Stew Fish

A fish stew simmered with wine or vinegar, butter, cream, spices, and prawns' tails.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

How to Stew Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the fish in a stewpan with white wine or vinegar.

  2. Add butter rolled in flour and cream.

  3. Season with cayenne, black pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  4. Add the prawns' tails and simmer gently for 1-2 minutes without boiling.

  5. Pour into a dish and serve hot.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the body of the stew and provides the main protein.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour thickens the liquid and butter adds richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the stew's flavour and texture.
White wine or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the cream.
Prawns' tails
Add sweet, delicate seafood flavour and tender texture.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling a cream-based stew can cause it to separate and toughen the fish and prawns. A gentle simmer keeps the sauce smooth and the seafood tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, white wine, butter, flour, cream, pepper, nutmeg. 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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