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Boiled Whitefish

A boiled whitefish served with a butter and flour sauce, garnished with sliced hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Whitefish

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Lay the fish open in a dripping pan with the back down.

  2. Nearly cover the fish with water.

  3. Add the salt.

  4. Cover tightly and simmer for 30 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir for a minute.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water and stir until thickened.

  4. Add the shredded hard-boiled eggs to the sauce.

Serve

  1. Dress the fish with gravy, butter, and pepper.

  2. Garnish with sliced eggs.

  3. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Whitefish + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Whitefish
Provides the main body of the dish, cooking gently in simmering water to become flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the gravy and the dressed fish.
Flour
Thickens the boiling water into a smooth gravy when cooked briefly in the melted butter.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a mild, rich flavour to the sauce and garnish.

The step that matters

Gradually add the boiling water to the flour and butter. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the gravy thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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