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Baked Sea Bass

A whole sea bass is stuffed with a breadcrumb and herb mixture, wrapped in salt pork, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Baked Sea Bass

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. Make a stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, butter, lemon zest, parsley, thyme, marjoram, salt, pepper, eggs, and water.

  3. Stuff the sea bass with the mixture and sew it up.

  4. Score the fish on both sides down to the bone and insert thin slices of salt pork into each incision.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a long baking pan with soup stock, salt, and pepper.

  2. Bake for 30 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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Sea bass
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so the flesh stays moist inside.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and egg to form a binding stuffing that keeps the filling moist.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the stuffing and keeping it moist.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape during baking.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the fish as it bakes, adding moisture and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Scoring and inserting the salt pork. Cuts that reach the bone let heat penetrate the thick flesh so the centre cooks through, while the pork slices release fat that keeps the fish moist.

“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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