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Baked Pickerel

Baked pickerel prepared by baking in water, butter, and rice, served with gravy and warm milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Pickerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Bake the fish

  1. Score the backbones of the fish with a sharp knife and lay them in a baking pan.

  2. Pour boiling water over the fish, cover, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for at least six hours, basting with butter and water.

  3. Check that the fish is tender yet firm.

Serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a hot-water dish.

  2. Prepare 1 cup of rice and drawn butter.

  3. Strain the gravy from the dripping pan into the butter, adding a little minced parsley.

  4. Heat the mixture until almost boiling and pour over the fish.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pickerel
Its flesh cooks gently into tender, flaky pieces that form the main body of the dish.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries the flavour of the gravy over the fish.
Butter
Basting keeps the surface moist and encourages light browning during the long bake.

The step that matters

Check doneness before serving. Fish proteins set gently at low heat, and overcooking squeezes out moisture, so the flesh turns dry and crumbly even when it looks done. Test that it is tender yet still firm.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, pepper, bread, milk. 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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