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To Dress Fish

A fish is simmered with herbs and then topped with a sauce of butter, anchovies, capers, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Dress Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. In a stewpan, combine thyme, parsley, sweet herbs, and sliced onion.

  2. Add the fish and sprinkle with the same herbs, chives, and sweet basil.

  3. Cover with cold water and vinegar, then add coarse sea salt and whole pepper.

  4. Heat gently, then increase the heat until boiling.

  5. Remove from heat and let the fish sit in the liquid.

Make the anchovy butter sauce

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt butter and add anchovies, chopped capers, chives, pepper, salt, nutmeg, flour, vinegar, and water.

  2. Stir until combined and heated through.

Serve

  1. Pour over the fish.

  2. Serve the fish on a dish with some sauce poured over it and the rest in a sauce tureen.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 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

Butter
Melts into the sauce to add richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the warm butter to add savory depth without a distinct fishy taste.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a sauce that clings to the fish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Poaching the fish gently. Once the liquid reaches a boil, the fish can toughen and fall apart. Heating gently and then pulling the pan off the heat lets the flesh cook evenly and stay moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, turbot, thyme, parsley, chive, basil, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, turbot, thyme, parsley, chive, basil, vinegar. 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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