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Stewed Ood Fish, in Brown Sauce

Stewed fish slices coated in flour, fried, then simmered in brown gravy with port wine, chili vinegar, cayenne pepper, salt, butter, flour, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Stewed Ood Fish, in Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Coat the fish slices in flour and fry them quickly until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fish on a sieve and arrange it in a clean stewpan.

Stew the fish

  1. Pour in enough boiling brown gravy to nearly cover the fish.

  2. Add ⅓ to ½ cup of port wine or claret, 2 teaspoons of chili vinegar or the juice of half a lemon, cayenne pepper, and salt to taste.

  3. Stew the fish gently until it begins to break apart.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully lift the fish into a hot serving dish.

  2. In the gravy, stir in 1.5 ounces of butter, smoothly blended with 2 teaspoons of flour and a little pounded mace.

  3. Boil the sauce for one minute.

  4. Pour the sauce over the fish and serve immediately.

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. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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
Frying in flour gives a golden crust, and gentle stewing keeps the flesh tender as it softens.
Flour
Coating the fish adds a browned crust, and flour blended into the butter thickens the sauce.
Brown gravy
Forms the savoury body of the sauce that the fish stews in.
Port wine or claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir the flour and butter into the gravy, then boil for one minute. Flour blended with butter must be fully dispersed and briefly boiled so its starch swells and thickens the sauce without lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, pepper, port wine, vinegar, butter. 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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