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 ↓
To Broil Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Clean, wash, and dry the fish.
Split the fish so the backbone is in the middle.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and lay inside down on a buttered grill over a clear fire.
Broil and serve
Cook until nicely colored, then turn.
Once done, place on a hot dish, butter generously, and season with black pepper.
Cover with a hot lid and serve.
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.
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,948 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Fish
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender flesh under direct heat.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and keeps the cooked fish from drying out.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the flesh and helps draw out surface moisture for better browning.
The step that matters
Cook until nicely colored, then turn. Fish is delicate and sticks or breaks if turned too early. Wait until the surface has released from the grill and browned, then turn it gently so the flesh stays intact and moist.
“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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