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Excellent Breakfast Dish

A fish dish baked with onion, peppercorns, bay leaves, vinegar, and beer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and beer work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Excellent Breakfast Dish

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 the fish

  1. Prepare the fish by removing heads, tails, and insides.

  2. Wipe the fish with a clean cloth to remove scales.

  3. Lightly dip each fish in flour, shaking off excess.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place sliced onion in a pie dish with peppercorns and bay leaves.

  2. Lay the fish on top, sprinkle with more peppercorns, and add another layer of onion and bay leaves if desired.

  3. Pour equal parts vinegar and beer over the fish to cover.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Vinegar + beertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Flour + beertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + beertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together830 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 and cooks through in the hot, moist liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the fish a sharp, tangy flavour.
Table beer
Adds liquid and malty flavour to the baking liquid around the fish.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and flavours the cooking liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, vinegar, beer):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, vinegar, beer. 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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