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Boiled Bass

A whole bass boiled with vinegar, salt, onion, peppercorns, mace, and served with drawn butter and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Bass

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the poaching liquid

  1. Fill a pot with enough water for the fish to swim easily.

  2. Add vinegar, salt, onion, black peppercorns, and mace.

Cook the fish

  1. Sew the fish in a piece of clean net fitted to its shape.

  2. Heat the pot slowly for the first 30 minutes.

  3. Boil the fish for at least 8 minutes per pound at a fast boil.

Serve

  1. Unwrap the fish and pour over it drawn butter made from the boiling liquid, mixed with lemon juice.

  2. Garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Bass
The main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in the simmering liquid.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel that complements the mild, poached fish.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity to the poaching liquid that brightens the flavour of the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity to the butter sauce, balancing its richness.

The step that matters

Heat the pot slowly for the first 30 minutes. Gentle heating lets the fish cook evenly from edge to centre. Starting it in a fast boil can toughen the outside and leave the middle undercooked before the proteins set uniformly.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, onion, butter, lemon. 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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