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Planked Shad

Planked Shad is a roe shad cooked on a wood plank, seasoned with salt, pepper, and served with drawn butter, mushroom sauce, catsup, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Planked Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Split the roe shad down the back and remove the backbone.

  2. Lay the fish open and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Fasten the fish to a hickory plank or other tasteless wood.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the plank before a bright wood fire, cooking without burning.

  2. Baste the fish with drawn butter and cook until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot from the plank on warm plates with drawn butter, mushroom sauce, catsup, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Roe + saucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Roe + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Roe shad
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a flaky texture once opened and planked.
Drawn butter
Adds moisture and richness while basting, helping the fish brown golden on the surface.

The step that matters

Place the plank before a bright wood fire, cooking without burning. Wood fire heat must be strong enough to cook the fish through and brown it but kept off direct flame, since scorching the plank or surface gives bitter, charred flavor and uneven cooking.

“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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