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Boiled Sea-Bass

A boiled sea bass served with sliced boiled eggs, egg sauce, and capers or nasturtium seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and capers work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Sea-Bass

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Clean the sea bass and place it in a fish kettle.

  2. Cover the fish with salted water.

  3. Envelop the fish in a fish cloth.

  4. Boil gently for a little over 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Drain the fish and serve on a hot dish.

  2. Garnish with sliced boiled eggs.

  3. Serve with egg sauce mixed with capers or nasturtium seed.

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. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + caperstop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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

Sea bass
Is the main protein, cooked gently in salted water until it is done through.
Eggs
Sliced boiled eggs add a mild, creamy garnish and contribute protein to the plate.
Capers or nasturtium seed
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts the richness of the egg sauce.

The step that matters

Boil gently for a little over 30 minutes. Boiling vigorously can break the delicate flesh apart and toughen it. A gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps it moist and intact.

“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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