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Broiled Fish

A fish fillet coated in flour or cornmeal, broiled and finished with drawn butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Broiled Fish

Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Broiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a bright fire.

Cook and serve

  1. Sprinkle flour or cornmeal over the fish.

  2. Broil the fish until cooked through.

  3. Pour drawn butter over the fish.

  4. Garnish with parsley 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Flour and butter 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through under direct heat.
Flour or cornmeal
Forms a light coating that helps the surface brown during broiling.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and richness, moistening the fish and carrying flavor over its surface.

The step that matters

Broil the fish until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and its flesh turns opaque and flakes when done. Too little heat or time leaves it underdone, while too much dries it out, so watch closely.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, butter. 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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