Skip to main content
Main

Baked White Fish

A whole white fish stuffed with onion, bread, parsley, egg yolk, and seasonings, baked and basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 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

  1. Scald and clean the fish, then cut out the backbone from the head to within 2 inches of the tail.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a skillet, fry the chopped onion in butter until yellow.

  2. Add soaked bread, chopped parsley, egg yolk, pepper, and salt; stir until cooked.

  3. Stuff the fish with the mixture and tie it closed with twine.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour melted butter and sprinkle coarse sea salt over the fish, then cover with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour, basting with melted butter.

  3. After baking, place the fish on a platter and make gravy in the dripping pan to serve with it.

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. Butter + breadtop 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

Whole white fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through gently in the oven to become flaky and moist.
Soaked bread
Adds bulk and a soft texture to the stuffing, absorbing moisture from the fish and butter.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape when cooked and sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and helping the fish brown and stay moist while basting.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the stuffing as it softens in butter.

The step that matters

Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour, basting with melted butter.. A whole stuffed fish cooks unevenly if the oven is not hot enough or basting is skipped. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps the flesh cook gently without drying out.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More baked white fish recipes

with Bread Stuffing 4 See all 42 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes