Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Baked Shad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Cut the fish from the gills down about 6 inches, wash, scrape clean, and dry with a cloth.
Stuff and bake
Make a stuffing with bread crumbs, chopped parsley, finely chopped pork, pepper, salt, and a little butter.
Fill the fish with the stuffing and sew it up.
Dredge flour over the fish and lay thin slices of pork on top.
Bake for 40 minutes in a tin.
Make the gravy and serve
Transfer the fish to a hot dish by the fire.
In the tin, combine pepper, salt, a piece of butter, hot water, and wine to make gravy.
When it boils, pour the gravy around the fish or into a tureen and serve garnished with parsley.
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.
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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,499 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Shad
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and held together by its stuffing.
- Salt pork
- Bastes the fish as it renders and adds savory fat and flavor to the stuffing and surface.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and fat in the stuffing, giving it a soft, cohesive texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the stuffing and gravy, contributing flavor and mouthfeel.
- Port wine
- Adds acidity and sweetness to the gravy, deepening its flavor as it reduces.
- Flour
- Dusted over the fish, it helps the surface brown and thickens the gravy.
The step that matters
Bake for 40 minutes in a tin. Shad is a bony, delicate fish, and overbaking dries the flesh and toughens it. Watching for the flesh to just turn opaque and flake keeps it moist.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, bread, flour, pepper, port wine):
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Sagefits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, bread, flour, pepper, port wine. 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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