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Salt-crusted Wild Sea Bass with Butternut Squash and Champagne Sauce

This simple and elegant way of steaming a whole fish has been tried-and-tested for centuries - give it a go!

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Butternut squash and shallot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salt-crusted Wild Sea Bass with Butternut Squash and Champagne Sauce

Serves 4
Prep30 min
Cook2 hr

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

613Calories
32 gProtein
36 gFat
44 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 15 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Salmon100g cooked208
Banana1 medium (118g)105
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Shallot1 tbsp minced (10g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Pumpkinnot in our table0
Rapeseed Oilnot in our table0
Champagnenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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. Butternut squash + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butternut squash + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together476 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Butternut squash + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butternut squash, shallot, garlic, pepper, butter, carrot):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butternut squash, shallot, garlic, pepper, butter, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.