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Baked Red Snapper or White Fish

A baked fish stuffed with parsley, breadcrumbs, onion, and bay leaf, simmered in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Red Snapper or White 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 stuffing

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly.

  2. In a skillet, melt a large spoonful of butter and fry the chopped onion until light brown.

  3. Mix the fried onion with parsley, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and bay leaf to make the dressing.

Stuff and bake

  1. Rub the fish inside and out with salt and pepper.

  2. Stuff the fish with the dressing and sew it up with soft string.

  3. Place the fish in a pan, top with small lumps of butter, and add 1 pint of water.

  4. Cover the pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, with sauce if desired.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in covered steam and water.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the onion and butter to form a moist, bound stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the onion and topping.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma when fried until light brown.

The step that matters

Cover the pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours. Covering the pan with water traps steam so the fish cooks gently and stays moist. Baking it uncovered or too long can dry the flesh and make it tough.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, bread, pepper, butter. 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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