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Planked Shad

A whole shad is cooked on a heated plank, seasoned, and served with radish roses, parsley, and lemon quarters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Planked 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

  1. Wash and dry the shad.

  2. Carefully remove the roe to prevent breaking.

Cook

  1. Split the shad and lay it skin side down on a heated plank.

  2. Cook in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or under a gas flame for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Season the shad.

Serve

  1. Serve on the plank, garnished with radish roses, parsley, and lemon quarters.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Radish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together120 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Radish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rose + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, moist flesh.

The step that matters

Laying the shad skin side down on a heated plank. A hot plank starts searing the skin right away, which helps the fish release cleanly and keeps the flesh from sticking or drying at the edges. Placing it skin side down protects the delicate flesh during cooking.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rose, parsley, lemon):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, parsley, lemon. 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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