Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Plain Baked Fish
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
Soak the cleaned fish in a large dish of salted water for 2 to 3 hours.
Remove the fish from the salt bath and rinse with fresh cold water.
Dust the inside of the fish with flour and a sprinkle of salt.
Tie the fish in shape with string and sprinkle the outer surface with flour.
Bake and serve
Place the fish on a rack in a baking pan.
Add a little water and a generous amount of butter to the bottom of the pan.
Baste the fish occasionally while baking.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size of the fish.
Serve the fish whole, garnished with hard-boiled eggs and 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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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Fish
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so it stays moist inside.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the fish during the salt soak, flavouring the flesh before baking.
- Flour
- Dusted on the surface, it helps form a light crust that promotes browning.
- Butter
- Basting fat that adds richness and promotes browning on the outer skin.
The step that matters
Basting the fish while it bakes. Basting spreads the butter and pan liquid over the surface, keeping the skin from drying out and helping it brown evenly.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, butter, egg):
- Capersfits better
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
- Tarragonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, butter, egg. 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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