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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with a breadcrumb and butter mixture, seasoned with salt, pepper, celery seeds, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

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

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Clean the fish thoroughly, salt it, then rinse well.

  3. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, pepper, salt, celery seeds, chopped onion, and 1 tablespoon of butter.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the fish with the dressing and place it in a baking pan.

  2. Add enough water to cover the fish partially, and season with additional pepper and salt.

  3. Dot the fish with the remaining butter, rolled in flour.

  4. Bake in the oven, basting frequently until cooked through.

  5. Garnish with sliced hard-boiled egg before serving.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the oven with its stuffing.
Light bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter to form a soft, savoury stuffing inside the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the surface brown and the fish stay moist.
Chopped onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the stuffing as it cooks inside the fish.
Celery seeds
Contribute a warm, earthy aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Basting until cooked through. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Frequent basting with the liquid in the pan keeps the flesh moist while it cooks through evenly, so the centre is done without the outside becoming dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, pepper, celery, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pepper, celery, butter, flour, 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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