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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with a savory cracker crumb mixture, salt pork, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix cracker crumbs, herbs, salt, pepper, and butter together.

  2. Moisten with water and add onion juice.

Prepare the fish

  1. Prepare the fish by splitting and drawing it, leaving the head and tail on.

  2. Remove fins and scrape off any scales.

  3. Wash and dry the fish.

  4. Rub 1 tablespoon salt into it.

  5. Stuff the dressing into the opening and secure with a skewer.

  6. Cut slits on top of the fish, about 2 inches long and ½ inch deep.

  7. Insert strips of salt pork into the slits.

  8. Butter a flat tin sheet and place it in a dripping pan.

  9. Lay the fish in the pan with the pork side up.

  10. Dredge the fish with pepper, salt, and flour.

  11. Add enough hot water to the pan to cover the bottom.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F oven for 45 minutes.

  2. Baste every 15 minutes with the pan gravy and lightly with salt, pepper, and flour.

  3. Once done, lift the tin from the pan and slide the fish onto a warm dish.

  4. Serve with brown, tomato, or Hollandaise sauce.

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. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Summer savory + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven to become flaky.
Cracker crumbs
Bulk for the dressing, absorbing moisture and holding its shape inside the fish.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that melts into the fish as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the dressing and helps the fish brown.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged on the fish and into the basting, it helps thicken and brown the pan gravy.

The step that matters

Basting the fish during baking. Regular basting with the pan gravy spreads moisture and fat over the surface, helping keep the fish from drying out over the 45 minutes in the oven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, summer savory, parsley, pork, fish):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, summer savory, parsley, pork, fish. 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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