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Stuffed Carp

A carp stuffed with a mixture of carp flesh, roes, and forced meat, baked and glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Stuffed Carp

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the carp

  1. Remove the skin and flesh from the carp, preserving the head, tail, and 3 inches of the bone.

  2. Combine the flesh of the carp with the flesh of the two smaller carp to make forced meat.

  3. Spread the forced meat in a dish, nearly 1 inch thick.

  4. Place the head and tail back in their positions.

  5. Prepare a salpicon or ragout with the roes of the carp.

  6. Fill the belly with the salpicon or ragout.

  7. Cover the salpicon or ragout with more forced meat, ensuring it resembles a larger carp.

Glaze and bake

  1. Seal the forced meat with a knife dipped in beaten egg.

  2. Glaze it with 2 beaten eggs.

  3. Use a spoon dipped in egg to create scales on the carp.

  4. Wrap the head and tail in buttered paper.

  5. Place the wrapped carp in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  6. Remove the paper.

  7. Wipe the dish.

Serve

  1. Serve with a good espagnole sauce or a ragout of the roes.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Carp flesh
Forms the forced meat, giving the stuffed fish its body and structure.
Eggs
Beaten eggs glaze the surface, adding sheen and helping the scales show as they set.
Butter
Buttered paper wrapping keeps the head and tail moist while they bake.

The step that matters

Covering the stuffing with forced meat. The forced meat must fully enclose the filling and be pressed evenly, since gaps let the filling dry out or leak during baking.

“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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