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Fish Stew

A stew of white fish fillets simmered with onion, spices, and a sauce thickened with beaten eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the fish.

  2. Cut the fish into neat fillets.

  3. Remove the skin and bones from some smaller pieces.

  4. Coarsely chop the fish to fill 2 tablespoons.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Mix the chopped fish with breadcrumbs, parsley, lemon rind, salt, and pepper, binding with a little beaten egg to shape into small balls.

Cook the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Fry the onion slightly.

  3. Add ginger, mace, cayenne, salt, and pepper.

  4. Add the filleted fish.

  5. Barely cover with hot water and bring to a boil.

  6. Place the forcemeat balls on top of the fish.

  7. Cover with greased paper.

  8. Simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes.

  9. Transfer the stew to a hot dish.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid over the remaining beaten eggs.

  2. Return to the pan.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Add lemon juice.

  5. Stir by the fire until the sauce thickens without boiling.

  6. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  7. Serve.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken the sauce as they set in the warm cooking liquid, and bind the forcemeat balls.
Butter
Fat that carries the aromatics and gives the sauce a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture in the fish mixture so the forcemeat holds its shape.
White fish
Provides the main body of the stew, with mild flavor and tender flakes when simmered gently.
Onion
Softens and adds savory sweetness to the base of the stew.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce without boiling. Egg proteins set and thicken the sauce gently at moderate heat, but if it boils they curdle and turn grainy. Keep it warm and stir until it coats a spoon.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, parsley, lemon, egg, butter, onion, ginger):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, lemon, egg, butter, onion, ginger. 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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