Skip to main content
Main

To Broil Fish

A whole fish is seasoned, broiled, and served with lemon or lime wedges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Broil Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the fish so the back bone is in the middle when laid flat.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with coarse sea salt.

Broil

  1. Place the fish, inside down, on a buttered gridiron over a clear fire.

  2. Cook the fish until nicely colored.

  3. Turn the fish.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the fish on a hot dish.

  2. Butter the fish generously.

  3. Season the fish with pepper.

  4. Cover the fish with a hot lid.

  5. Serve the fish with lemon or lime 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main protein that cooks through over direct fire and flakes when done.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps keep the fish from sticking to the grid.

The step that matters

Cook the fish until nicely colored. Direct heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavor. Too little heat or time leaves the fish pale and bland, while too much dries or burns the skin before the flesh cooks 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.

More broiled fish recipes

Sauce 5 See all 100 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipes