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Baked White Fish

A stuffed white fish baked with bread crumbs, salt pork, sage, parsley, pepper, salt, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked White Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Prepare a stuffing by mixing fine bread crumbs, chopped salt pork, sage, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Fill the fish with the stuffing and sew it up.

Season and bake

  1. Sprinkle the outside of the fish with salt and pepper, and dot with bits of butter.

  2. Dredge the fish with flour and bake at 300°F (150°C) for one hour, basting often.

  3. Serve with egg sauce or parsley sauce.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fine bread crumbs
Bulk up the stuffing and soak up juices so it stays moist inside the fish.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the stuffing as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish surface and promotes gentle browning.
Flour
Dries the fish surface, helping it brown and form a light crust.

The step that matters

Basting often during the one-hour bake. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Regular basting with the pan juices and melted fat keeps the surface moist and helps the flesh stay tender while it cooks through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pork, sage, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork, sage, pepper, butter, flour. 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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