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Steamed Halibut

A halibut fillet steamed and served with a drawn butter sauce and sliced hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Steamed Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the halibut

  1. Clean the halibut by wiping it with a cheese cloth dampened with cold water.

  2. Place the halibut in a strainer over a kettle of boiling water and cover closely.

  3. Keep the water at a boiling point until the fish is cooked; it is done when the flesh leaves the bone.

  4. Remove the fish to a hot serving dish and take off the outer skin.

Make the drawn butter sauce

  1. To make the Drawn Butter Sauce, melt ¾ tablespoon of butter in a pan.

  2. Add ¾ tablespoon of flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually pour in ½ cup of boiling water while stirring constantly.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt, then add ¾ tablespoon of butter in small pieces.

  5. Garnish with sliced hard boiled egg.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Is the main protein; gentle steaming cooks it until the flesh becomes opaque and flakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a boiling point while steaming. Steam must stay strong to cook the fish evenly; if the water drops too low, cooking slows and the fish can turn out unevenly done.

“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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