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Baked Bluefish

A baked bluefish stuffed with veal, seasoned with butter, salt, flour, and served with a sauce of pickles, parsley, Worcestershire, anchovy, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. Clean the bluefish thoroughly, removing any slime or dark matter inside.

  2. Wipe the fish dry.

  3. Stuff the fish with veal stuffing and sew the fish up.

  4. Place the fish in a dripping pan.

  5. Top the fish with butter pieces, sprinkle with salt, and dredge 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.

  4. Set the dripping pan on the stove.

  5. Add flour to the pan and let the flour brown.

  6. Rub the browned flour into the butter and gravy.

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

  8. Strain the sauce.

  9. Mix in Worcestershire sauce, anchovy sauce, and the chopped pickles and parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce separately, garnished 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

Butter
Melts over the fish and into the pan, adding richness and moisture to the gravy.
Flour
Browned in the pan drippings and whisked into the liquid to thicken the sauce.
Bluefish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savory depth to the finished sauce.
Pickled cucumber or capers
Add a sharp, acidic bite that cuts the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the pan drippings. Flour must brown slowly in the fat until it is nutty and cooked; if it is rushed or burns, the sauce tastes bitter, and if it is not cooked enough, it tastes raw and floury.

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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