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To Boil Fresh Fish

A boiled fresh fish served with a gravy of eggs, butter, mustard, pepper, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Boil Fresh Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fish

  1. Clean and wash the fish well, then tie it up in a cloth.

  2. Place the fish in a pot of boiling water with ½ tablespoon of salt.

  3. Boil for 30 to 45 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the chopped hard-boiled eggs, butter, mustard, pepper, fish eggs, and enough milk to create a gravy.

  2. Boil the mixture.

Serve

  1. Pour the gravy over the fish.

  2. Remove the fish from the cloth.

  3. Place the fish on a platter.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in boiling water.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the gravy, carrying flavour and giving it a smooth texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Thicken the gravy and give it body as the chopped egg blends into the milk and butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, softening the egg and butter into a creamy sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts the richness of the butter and egg.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture. Milk and egg proteins can scorch or curdle if overheated or left unstirred, which makes the gravy grainy. Keep it at a gentle boil while stirring so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, butter, pepper, milk. 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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