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Baked Halibut Steak

Layered halibut steak baked with custard and crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Halibut Steak

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish and place a layer of halibut steak in the bottom.

  3. Sprinkle lightly with bread or cracker crumbs.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the beaten eggs, milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar to create the custard mixture.

Layer and bake

  1. Pour half of the custard mixture over the halibut.

  2. Add another layer of halibut and sprinkle with more crumbs.

  3. Pour the remaining custard mixture over the top.

  4. As the custard thickens at the sides, loosen it with a spoon and pile it on top.

  5. Repeat this process several times until browned.

  6. Bake for 45 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut steak
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through into flaky layers in the custard.
Eggs
Set the custard, giving the layers a firm, sliceable structure as they bake.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, keeping the fish moist as it bakes.
Butter
Greases the dish and adds richness and browning to the surface.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb custard between layers and help the top brown.

The step that matters

Layering and pile-up of the custard. Custard that is not loosened and piled over the top can thicken unevenly at the sides, leaving the surface pale and the fish underneath dry. Spooning it back over the top keeps the layers evenly moist and helps the surface brown.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, egg, milk, pepper, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg, milk, pepper, sugar. 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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