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Baked Fish

Baked Fish is a whole fish baked with salt, pepper, butter, onions, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked 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. Clean the fish and wash it thoroughly in cold water with a little salt.

  2. Soak the fish in salted water until ready to use.

Bake

  1. Place the whole fish in a baking pan and season inside and out with salt and pepper, rubbing it in well.

  2. Dot the fish with a few pieces of butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  4. Add 1 cup of hot water and 1-2 sliced onions, then continue baking for 1-2 hours, basting frequently.

  5. If the fish is lean, use more butter while baking.

Serve

  1. Remove the fish to a hot platter just before serving.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,924 recipes

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

  5. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and keeps the fish moist as it bakes.
Sliced onions
Release moisture and sweetness into the pan liquid as they bake.

The step that matters

Basting during the long bake. Lean fish dries out over a one to two hour bake. Regular basting with the pan liquid and butter keeps the surface moist and the flesh tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, 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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