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Planked Fish

Fish baked on a heated plank, served with mashed potatoes and a butter‑lemon‑parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 Fish

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 the fish

  1. Prepare the fish for baking. Remove the backbone if possible.

  2. Heat a smooth oak plank until hot.

  3. Place the fish on the plank.

Bake and season

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour, depending on the size of the fish.

  2. Remove the fish from the oven.

  3. Season the fish with salt and pepper to taste.

Make and pipe the potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes. Mash the cooked potatoes. Season the mashed potatoes.

  2. Pipe 2 rows of mashed potatoes around the fish using a pastry bag.

Brown and serve

  1. Return the fish to the oven. Brown the potatoes.

  2. Dress the fish with a sauce made from melted butter, lemon juice, and chopped parsley. Garnish with lemon slices and sprigs of parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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 fish
Forms the main protein, which cooks gently on the plank and stays moist.
Potatoes
Mashed and piped, they provide a starchy base that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour in the melted sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and fish.

The step that matters

Return the fish to the oven to brown the potatoes. Piped potatoes can dry out or burn quickly. Browning needs enough heat to caramelise the surface without overcooking the fish beneath.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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

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