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Stuffed Bass

A whole bass stuffed with soda cracker mixture, oysters, and pork, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Stuffed Bass

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish.

  2. Dip soda crackers in boiling water for 1 second.

  3. Mix the crackers with butter, salt, and pepper.

Stuff and tie

  1. Add oysters to the mixture and stuff it into the fish.

  2. Draw the loose flesh over the opening and tie it with clean twine.

Bake

  1. Lay the fish on thin slices of pork and place a few more on top.

  2. Bake for 20 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

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 + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,255 recipes

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

  3. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Soda crackers
Soak up moisture and bind with butter to form a soft, savory stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist as it bakes.
Small raw oysters
Add briny flavour and tenderness to the stuffing as they cook.
Thin slices of pork
Baste the fish with fat as it bakes, adding savoury flavour and helping prevent drying.

The step that matters

Dip soda crackers in boiling water for 1 second.. A very brief dip softens the crackers just enough to bind without turning them mushy. Longer soaking would make the stuffing waterlogged and dense.

“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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