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Baked Shad

Baked Shad is a fish dish with bread crumb stuffing, baked with butter and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Shad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Clean, wash, and wipe the shad.

  2. Make stuffing by combining bread crumbs, sweet milk, butter, pepper, salt, sweet herbs, and beaten egg.

  3. Stuff the shad and sew it up.

Bake

  1. Place the shad in a baking pan with 1 cup of water.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour, basting with butter and water until tender and browned.

  3. Transfer to a hot dish and cover.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine catsup, browned flour mixed with cold water, and thick cream; boil to make gravy.

  2. Garnish with sliced lemon and watercress.

  3. Serve gravy over the fish or in a sauceboat, removing the thread 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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Is the main fish, cooked whole and kept moist by the stuffing and basting.
Bread crumbs
Absorb milk and butter to form a moist, soft stuffing inside the fish.
Beaten egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that promotes browning while basting the fish.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deeper colour and flavour.
Thick cream
Enriches the gravy, adding body and a smooth, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Baking and basting the shad. Fish cooks quickly and dries out easily. Basting with butter and water keeps the flesh moist and promotes even browning, while the fish is cooked only until it flakes tender.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, pepper, egg, flour, cream. 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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