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Baked Fish in Tomato Sauce

A baked fish served in a tomato sauce with butter, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Fish in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Brown the chopped onion.

  3. Stir in the flour and add the tomatoes.

  4. Stew slowly until very soft.

  5. Add the beaten egg.

  6. Season with salt and celery salt.

Prepare and bake the fish

  1. Split the fish down the back.

  2. Rub the fish with suet.

  3. Bake the fish in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 15 minutes.

  4. Pour off almost all the liquid from the fish.

  5. Add the tomato sauce.

  6. Return the fish to the oven.

  7. Bake for another 15 minutes.

  8. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  9. Spread with butter.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and acidity of the sauce, which softens as it stews.
Egg
Beaten into the sauce to add body and help it set slightly.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the onion and butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and the finished fish.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma when browned in butter.

The step that matters

Stew the sauce until very soft. Slow stewing breaks down the tomatoes and cooks out raw flavour, so the sauce becomes smooth and mellow. Rushing it leaves a thin, sharp sauce that does not coat the fish well.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, tomato, sauce, flour, egg, fish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, tomato, sauce, flour, egg, fish. 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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