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Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with salt pork, seasoned, and baked, served with a brown sauce and garnished with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. 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 the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Stuff the cleaned fish and sew up the opening with a trussing needle.

  3. Cut three gashes in each side of the fish and insert slices of salt pork into each cut.

  4. Truss the fish into an 'S' shape using a double cotton cord.

  5. Dredge the fish with salt, pepper, and flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish on slices of larding pork in a baking pan and cover with more pork slices.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes per pound, basting frequently with the drippings.

  3. Serve with a brown sauce, garnished with lemon 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Larding pork
Melts into the fish during baking, adding fat and moisture while flavouring the flesh.
Flour
Dredging coats the surface, helping it brown and giving the drippings body for the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish and the pan drippings used for basting.
Vinegar or wine
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish and the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Basting frequently with the drippings. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in dry oven heat. Regular basting with the fat and juices keeps the surface moist and carries flavour into the flesh.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, vinegar, carrot, clove, celery, 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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