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Planked Shad or Whitefish

A whole shad or whitefish cooked on a hot hardwood plank with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Planked Shad or Whitefish

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the hardwood plank until very hot to avoid a woody flavor.

  2. Wipe the fish with a cloth soaked in cold water and dry it.

  3. Open the fish and season it with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and dots of butter.

Cook

  1. Cook the fish for 25 minutes over a clear fire or in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Whitefish + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Whitefish + peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole shad or whitefish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently on the heated plank.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness as it melts over the fish during cooking.

The step that matters

Preheat the hardwood plank until very hot. A plank that is not hot enough will not sear or dry the surface of the fish properly, and cooking it too cool can release a woody flavor into the fish. Heating it thoroughly before the fish goes on helps the wood char slightly and give a clean, smoky aroma.

“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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