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To Boil Halibut

Halibut is boiled with salt, then served with horseradish, parsley, egg sauce, and optional seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Boil Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Score the skin of the halibut deeply.

  2. Place the halibut in a kettle on a strainer with the skin side down.

  3. Cover with cold water and add a handful of coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Heat slowly to avoid boiling too fast, skimming as needed.

  2. Once it boils hard for a few minutes, reduce heat to simmer for 25 to 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Drain the halibut and serve garnished with grated horseradish and curled parsley, alongside egg sauce.

  2. For leftovers, mince the cold halibut and season with salt, cayenne, sweet oil, minced egg yolk, and vinegar.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Horseradish + saucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish; cooking firms its flaky protein into moist, tender pieces.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the poaching water so the fish is seasoned as it cooks.

The step that matters

Heat slowly, then simmer gently. Bringing the water up slowly and keeping it at a simmer rather than a hard boil helps the fish cook evenly and stay tender instead of breaking apart or toughening.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, egg, sauce, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, egg, sauce, pepper, vinegar. 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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