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Baked Halibut or Salmon

A baked fish served with a tomato‑based sauce and garnished with parsley and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Halibut or Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the fish in cold water with a little coarse sea salt for 30 minutes.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Place a gridiron over a dripping pan with a little hot water.

Bake and baste

  1. Bake the fish for about 30 minutes for a small fish or 1 hour for a large fish.

  2. Baste the fish with butter just before it is done and brown the top.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, combine the gravy from the dripping pan with catsup, pungent sauce, and lemon juice.

  2. Thicken the sauce with brown flour moistened with cold water.

  3. Serve the fish garnished with parsley and currant jelly.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Fish (halibut or salmon)
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the oven until flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the surface and helps the top brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Brown flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the fish.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and tang to the pan sauce.

The step that matters

Baste the fish just before it is done. Fish cooks quickly and dries out easily, so adding butter near the end coats the surface, adds moisture, and lets the top brown without overcooking the flesh.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, sauce, lemon, flour, parsley):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, sauce, lemon, flour, parsley. 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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