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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with pork fat, cracker crumbs, butter, and optional egg, served with drawn butter or Hollandaise sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Clean the fish and remove any gills or innards.

  3. Baste the fish with pork fat and place it in a baking pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

  2. Once done, carefully lift the fish onto a hot platter.

  3. Remove any trussing threads and the salt pork.

  4. Garnish with parsley, watercress, or Saratoga potatoes.

  5. Serve with drawn butter 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Pork fat
Bastes the fish, adding moisture and richness as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, absorbent coating that helps bind the stuffing or topping.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and aiding gentle browning.
Egg
Binds the crumbs and adds moisture and structure when used as the optional liquid.

The step that matters

Basting and timing the bake. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in heat. Basting with fat and checking doneness against the fish's size helps keep the flesh moist and tender without overcooking it.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pork, pepper, butter, egg, sauce):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, pepper, butter, egg, sauce. 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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