Skip to main content
Main

Baked Fish

Baked fish with bread crumbs, butter, herbs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baked Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Split open the fish, remove the head and backbone, wash well in cold water, and dry with a cloth.

  3. Chop the parsley, herbs, and suet, then mix them together with half the bread crumbs, lemon rind, pepper, and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and lay one fish skin side down.

  2. Add a layer of the seasoning mixture, a little lemon juice, and a few pieces of butter on top.

  3. Place another fish on top with the cut side facing the seasoning, and repeat the layering process.

  4. Finish with the remaining bread crumbs and butter on top.

  5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

Mullet or jew-fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into moist, flaky layers.
Suet
Melts during baking, adding fat that keeps the seasoning moist and rich.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and juices and form a golden, crisp topping as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and carries flavour through the layers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and suet seasoning.

The step that matters

Layering the fish with the seasoning. Fish is delicate and cooks quickly, so the seasoning and butter must sit between and over the fillets to keep them moist. Uneven layering can leave dry spots or uneven cooking during the 30-minute bake.

“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 fish recipes

with Tomatoes 7with Breadcrumbs 6Stuffed 6in Batter 4with Pork Slices 4Sauce for 4 See all 221 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipes