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Whiting, Boiled

Boiled whiting served with parsley and a suitable sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whiting, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Do not skin the whiting.

  2. Prepare enough warm water to cover the fish and add a little salt.

Cook

  1. Add the fish to the water and bring it gently to a boil.

  2. Simmer for 7 to 8 minutes if the fish is small.

Serve

  1. Drain the fish well and serve on a folded napkin.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve with a suitable 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. Whiting + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Whiting + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Forms the main protein; gentle poaching keeps its flesh tender and moist rather than tough.

The step that matters

Bring the fish gently to a boil. Rapid boiling agitates and breaks up delicate fish flesh, toughening it and making it flake apart. Gentle heat cooks the fish evenly and keeps it intact.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, sauce. 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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