Why it works: Arrowroot and pepper work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 329 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Boiled Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Fill a saucepan with water and bring it to a boil.
Clean the fish thoroughly in cold water.
Poach the fish
Once boiling, place the fish on a strainer or plate in the water, ensuring it is covered.
Add enough salt to make the water taste salty.
Cover the saucepan and reduce heat to simmer for 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the fish size.
Skim the surface occasionally.
The fish is done when the skin starts to crack.
Make the sauce
In a small saucepan, mix 2 teaspoons of cornflour or arrowroot with cold water to form a smooth paste.
Add ½ cup of the boiling fish water to the paste.
Heat the saucepan and stir until the mixture boils and thickens.
Remove from heat and let it sit on a paper on the table.
Flavor the sauce with 1 teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice, and season with pepper and salt to taste.
Optionally, color the sauce with ½ teaspoon of caramel (burnt sugar).
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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Arrowroot + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together329 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,948 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Arrowroot + vinegartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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
- Cornflour or arrowroot
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated with liquid.
- Vinegar or lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the sauce.
The step that matters
Bring the sauce to a full boil while stirring. Starch granules need to be heated fully and stirred while they swell; otherwise the sauce stays thin or turns lumpy. Boiling is needed for the starch to reach its full thickening power.
Swap the arrowroot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Cucumberfits better
- Arrowrootthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, pepper. 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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