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Baked Bluefish

A baked bluefish served with a butter and gravy sauce made from pickles, capers, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, anchovy sauce, and claret wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Bluefish

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the bluefish thoroughly, removing any slime or dark tissue inside. Dry the fish.

  2. Stuff the fish with veal stuffing. Sew the fish up.

  3. Place the fish in a dripping pan and top with butter pieces. Sprinkle the fish with salt. Dredge the fish with flour.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake the fish at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on size.

  2. While the fish is baking, chop the pickled cucumber or capers and parsley.

  3. Once cooked, keep the fish hot and set the dripping pan on the stove.

  4. Add flour to the pan and let it brown, stirring it into the butter and gravy.

  5. Quickly pour in boiling water and claret wine, stirring until smooth.

  6. Strain the sauce and mix in Worcestershire sauce, anchovy sauce, and the chopped pickles and parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce separately, garnishing the fish with lemon points and 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bluefish + saucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  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

Bluefish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven while the butter and pan juices develop.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, basting the fish as it bakes and enriching the pan gravy.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy, and browning it deepens the flavour of the sauce.
Pickled cucumber or capers
Adds sharp acidity and salty brightness that cuts through the rich butter and gravy.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and a tangy, fermented note to the sauce.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury umami note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the pan. Flour must be stirred into the butter and juices and browned before liquid is added, so it cooks out its raw taste and thickens smoothly. Adding the boiling liquid quickly, while stirring, prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bluefish, butter, flour, parsley, wine, pepper, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bluefish, butter, flour, parsley, wine, pepper, sauce. 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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