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BakeD FisH

A whole fish baked with a bread and milk mixture, butter, herbs, and salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

BakeD FisH

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Soak the bread in milk until soft.

  2. Add butter, pepper, salt, parsley, and thyme or summer savory to the bread.

  3. Stuff the fish with the mixture without cutting it open; if cut, bind it with a strong cord.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a pan and top with salt pork or butter.

  2. Add a little water to the pan if the oven is very hot.

  3. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

  4. Before the fish is done, mix milk, flour, and parsley, then pour around the fish.

  5. Seal the pan and pour the mixture over the fish or serve in a 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaked in milk, it forms a moist, soft stuffing that keeps the fish from drying out.
Milk
Softens the bread and, with flour, forms a light sauce around the fish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the fish brown and taste savoury as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it forms a smooth sauce for the fish.
Salt pork
Melts over the fish as it bakes, adding fat and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the milk sauce before the fish is done. Flour mixed into milk thickens only as it heats and can clump if poured in cold or too early. Adding it near the end, once the fish is nearly cooked, keeps the sauce smooth and stops the fish from overcooking while it simmers.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, milk, butter, pepper, thyme, pork. 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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