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The Whiting

A simple boiled whiting served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and fish work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The Whiting

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean the fish and place them in a fish kettle or stew pan with salt and water. Add a little cold water.

  2. Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

  3. When done, serve on a flat dish with a strainer and garnish with parsley.

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. Whiting + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Whiting + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting fish
Is the main protein that cooks gently in simmering water until flaky and opaque.

The step that matters

Simmering time. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and tough if overcooked. Timing should follow the size of the fish, since larger pieces need longer to reach the centre while thin ones firm up fast.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, fish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, fish. 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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