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Baked White Fish

A whole white fish stuffed with onion, bread, herbs, and egg yolks, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 White 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 the fish

  1. Cut off the fish head if preferred.

  2. Remove the backbone, leaving 2 inches from the tail.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a pan, fry the chopped onion in 1 ounce of butter until soft.

  2. Add the soaked bread, remaining butter, salt, pepper, and parsley or sage.

  3. Heat the mixture through.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the fish with the mixture.

  2. Sew the fish up with twine.

  3. Wrap the fish with white tape.

  4. Rub the fish with the remaining butter.

  5. Place the fish in a baking pan with a little hot water.

  6. Shape the fish into an S.

  7. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

Make the sauce

  1. Mash the hard-boiled egg yolks with salad oil, mustard, pepper, and vinegar to taste.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 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

White fish
Provides the main body that is stuffed and baked until cooked through.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish brown in the oven.
Onion
Softened in butter, it adds sweetness and aroma to the stuffing.
Stale bread
Soaked and squeezed, it binds the stuffing and keeps it moist.
Egg yolks
Beaten yolks bind the stuffing so it holds together when heated.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the sauce, they give it a thick, smooth, creamy body.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and becomes dry and tough if overbaked, while underbaking leaves it unsafe. The stuffing also needs enough heat to set the beaten yolks, so check the thickest part of the fish.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, onion, bread, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, onion, bread, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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