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Broiled White Fish — Fresh

Broiled white fish seasoned with pepper and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Broiled White Fish — Fresh

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and drain the fish.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with pepper.

Broil

  1. Place the fish inside down on the grill.

  2. Broil over fresh, bright coals until nicely browned.

  3. Turn the fish for a moment on the other side.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat and spread with butter.

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

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

  2. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a flaky texture as it broils.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the cooked fish when spread on at the end.

The step that matters

Broiling until nicely browned. Fish is delicate and dries out quickly over direct heat. Watching for browning and turning it only briefly helps keep the flesh moist while the surface sets and colors.

“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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