Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Boiled Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Poach the fish
Wrap the fish in a napkin and place it in a long pan of salted water.
Boil until tender, then lift the fish from the water and remove the napkin.
Place the fish on a platter.
Make the sauce and serve
In a saucepan, melt the butter.
Stir in the flour, then add the lemon juice, lemon rind, beaten egg yolks, and water.
Serve the sauce hot over the fish.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,889 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the sauce and give it a creamy, rich body when gently heated.
- Flour
- Stirred into the melted butter, it helps thicken the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and egg sauce.
The step that matters
Adding the egg yolks to the sauce. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir constantly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, egg):
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
- Vanillafits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, egg. 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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