Name: Broiled Fish
Ingredients: 1 to 2 pounds fresh fish (such as ash or smoked haddie); Coarse sea salt; Fat (for dotting); Sliced lemon (for garnish)

Why it works: Fish and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,889 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Broiled Fish

Ingredients

1 to 2 pounds fresh fish (such as ash or smoked haddie)
Coarse sea salt
Fat (for dotting)
Sliced lemon (for garnish)

Directions

Prepare

Wash the fish and split it open.
Season the fish with coarse sea salt and dot with fat.
Place the fish on a greased broiler.

Broil and serve

Broil over coals or under a gas flame until brown and the flakes can be easily separated.
If using a gas broiler, position the rack several inches below the flame.
Garnish with sliced lemon before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

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 brown flakes that separate easily.
Fat: Adds moisture and richness to the fish as it broils, helping it brown.

“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.