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Baked Pickerel

A baked pickerel served with a butter and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Pickerel

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Place the fish in a dripping pan with enough hot water to prevent scorching.

  3. Use a perforated sheet of tin or muffin rings to keep the fish off the bottom.

  4. Lay the fish in a circle on its belly, with the head and tail touching, and tie it if necessary.

  5. Bake slowly, basting often with butter and water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a cup, mix sweet cream or rich milk with a few spoons of hot water.

  2. Stir in two large spoons of melted butter and a little chopped parsley.

  3. Heat the mixture by placing the cup in boiling water.

  4. Add the gravy from the dripping pan and let it boil once.

Serve

  1. Place the fish on a hot dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  3. Cream + parsleytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,392 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickerel
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it bakes slowly.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish brown when basted over it.
Sweet cream or rich milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Let the sauce boil only once. Sauces made with cream or milk can separate or curdle when boiled hard or for a long time. A single brief boil after adding the pan gravy keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Macefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. 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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