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 White Fish
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Wash the fish well in salt water.
Place it on a wire broiler.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
Cook and serve
Set in a drip pan in the oven and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.
Brown the fish over hot coals.
Pour melted butter over the fish and serve.
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.
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White fish
- Forms the main body of the dish and cooks into flaky, tender flesh.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the fish as it is served.
The step that matters
Brown the fish over hot coals. Browning depends on direct, high heat working on a dry surface. Too little heat leaves the fish pale and steamed, while too much can scorch the outside before the centre is cooked through.
“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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