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Broiled Carp with Caper Sauce

A carp filleted, broiled, and served with a caper butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Carp with Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carp

  1. Kill the carp by striking its head with a large knife.

  2. Remove the scales starting from the tail, ensuring they come off in one piece.

  3. Remove the gills without damaging the tongue.

  4. Make small incisions in the neck and belly to remove the roe, intestines, and guts.

  5. Wash the carp thoroughly and wipe it dry.

  6. Slit both sides of the back and marinate in oil, salt, and pepper for about an hour.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the carp on a grill over low heat and broil for 20-30 minutes, turning occasionally.

  2. Prepare the caper sauce by melting butter in a saucepan, adding flour, and stirring until combined.

  3. If the carp has soft roe, mix it with chopped parsley and a small amount of butter, then sew the belly shut.

  4. Once cooked, remove the thread and serve the carp with the caper 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, so its flesh sets the texture and flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the caper sauce and carries flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Broil over low heat with occasional turning. Fish flesh is delicate and dries out or sticks when heat is too high or it is left unturned. Low, steady heat and turning help the carp cook through evenly while staying moist.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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