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Stewed Carp

A stew of carp cooked with onion, cloves, spices, port wine, anchovies, mustard, walnut ketchup, butter, served with fried bread, roe, horseradish, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Scald and clean the carp, reserving the roe.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the carp, beef gravy, onion, cloves, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, and port wine.

  3. Simmer covered until nearly done.

Finish and serve

  1. Add chopped anchovies, mustard, walnut ketchup, and butter rolled in flour.

  2. Shake the pan and let the gravy boil for a few minutes.

  3. Serve with fried bread snippets, fried roe, horseradish, and lemon.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Main protein that becomes tender as it simmers in the gravy.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour starch and butter fat thicken the gravy and give it body.
Port wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the gravy, adding savoury depth.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the gravy.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aroma into the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Let the gravy boil after adding the butter and flour. Boiling gelatinises the flour starch so the gravy thickens smoothly, and it cooks out the raw flour taste. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and floury.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, pepper, port wine, mustard, walnut, ketchup, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, port wine, mustard, walnut, ketchup, butter. 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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