Why it works: Fish and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,036 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓
Boiled Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Bring a pot of water to a boil and season it with coarse sea salt and vinegar or lemon juice.
Carefully lay the fish in the boiling water and bring it back to a boil.
Remove the pot from the heat, cover it tightly, and keep it just below boiling.
Cook the fish for about 10 minutes per pound, or until it begins to flake away from the bone.
Remove the fish from the water immediately when cooked and cover it with a cloth to keep it warm.
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.
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Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,036 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Is the protein that cooks through gently and sets into flakes as its proteins firm up.
The step that matters
Keep the water just below boiling after the fish goes in. A hard boil agitates and toughens the delicate protein, breaking the fish apart and drying the outside. Gentle, sub-boiling heat cooks the fish evenly and keeps it moist and tender.
“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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