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Stewed Fish

A fish stew made with fish, onions, pork fat, flour, and water, simmered and garnished with potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the heads and bones from the fish.

  2. Boil the heads and bones in 3 pints of water for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the pork and fry until brown.

  2. Slice the onions and fry them in the pork fat.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Pour the strained water from the boiled heads and bones into the onion mixture and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stew and serve

  1. Cut the fish into 3‑inch pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the fish in the stew‑pan and pour the sauce over it.

  3. Cover tightly and simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning if necessary.

  5. Garnish with potato balls and parsley.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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

Fish
Forms the main body of the stew and flakes into tender pieces as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and onions.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, adding depth to the sauce.
Pork
Adds savoury fat and browned flavour to the onions and sauce.
Butter
Provides fat for frying and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and cook for 3 minutes. Flour must be cooked in the hot fat while stirring constantly; this cooks out its raw taste and lets it thicken the sauce evenly without lumps when the liquid is added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, pepper, potato. 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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