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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with salt, butter, and water until browned and cooked through.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Open the fish so it lies flat.

  2. Rub salt over the fish and place it in a dripping pan.

Bake

  1. Add butter and water to the pan.

  2. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on thickness.

  3. The fish is done when it is a delicate brown and cooked through.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the fish brown in the pan.
Water
Creates steam in the pan, keeping the fish moist while it cooks.

The step that matters

Judging doneness. Fish cooks quickly and dries out easily. Thickness changes the time needed, so checking that the flesh is opaque and flakes easily, rather than relying only on the clock, helps prevent overcooking.

“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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