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Broiled Halibut

Broiled Halibut is a fillet seasoned, coated in flour, and broiled, served with parsley and lemon wedges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the halibut fillet and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Brush the fish with melted butter.

  3. Let it stand for 1 hour.

  4. Roll the fish in flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the fish over a clear fire or in a well-oiled skillet for 12 to 15 minutes.

  2. Serve on a dish garnished with parsley and lemon wedges.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut fillet
Is the main protein that cooks through under heat and forms the dish.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture to the surface and helps it brown during broiling.
Flour
Forms a thin coating that helps the surface brown and holds the butter.

The step that matters

Broil the fish for 12 to 15 minutes. Fish is lean and cooks quickly, so too long under high heat dries out the flesh. Watching for the flesh to turn opaque and flake easily helps prevent overcooking.

“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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