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Whiting Boiled

A simple boiled whiting fish served with parsley garnish and a suitable sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whiting Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish, but do not skin them.

  2. Fill a shallow pan with enough warm water to cover the fish and add a little coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Add the fish to the pan and bring the water gently to a boil.

  2. Simmer the fish for 7 to 8 minutes if they are small.

Serve

  1. Drain the fish well and serve on a dish lined with paper or a folded napkin.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve with a suitable sauce.

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 + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 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

Small whiting fish
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks gently in the water.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after bringing to a boil. Once the water boils, the fish should cook at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil. Vigorous boiling can break the delicate flesh apart and toughen it, so the fish stays moist and intact.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, fish, sauce. 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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