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Stewed Carp

A fish stew made with carp, cream, butter, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the carp inside and out with salt, pepper, and powdered ginger.

  2. Let it marinate for 1 hour.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the carp in a stew pan with chopped parsley, whole onion, sweet marjoram, cream, and butter.

  2. Add enough water to cover the carp and simmer for 30 minutes. Skim the surface.

  3. Serve in a deep dish, thickening the gravy with butter and flour before pouring it over the fish.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Ginger + marjoramtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Is the main protein that becomes tender and flaky during the gentle simmer.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and body to the gravy as it simmers with the fish.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the gravy, while butter adds fat and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after adding water. A gentle simmer cooks the carp through without breaking up the flesh. A hard boil can toughen the protein and scatter the fish, and cream-based liquids can curdle or separate if overheated.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, onion, marjoram, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, onion, marjoram, cream, butter, flour. 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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