Skip to main content
Main

Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with salt pork, onion, butter, egg, herbs, and breadcrumbs, baked with salt pork and water, finished with a flour‑thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish, wash it, and set aside.

  2. Make a stuffing by mixing the minced salt pork, onion, butter, egg, parsley or mint, bread crumbs, pepper, and salt.

  3. Fill the body of the fish with the stuffing and sew it up.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a dripping pan and lay 3 to 4 strips of salt pork on top.

  2. Add 1 pint of water to the pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

  3. After removing the fish, thicken the gravy with 1 tablespoon of flour and pour it 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and stuffed.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stuffing and as it renders over the fish.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter, giving the stuffing body and texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquids into a gravy.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during baking. The fish is baked for a long time at moderate heat, and regular basting with pan liquids keeps the surface from drying out while moistening the flesh and browning the skin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pork, butter, egg, parsley, bread, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, butter, egg, parsley, bread, pepper. 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.

More baked fish recipes

with Tomatoes 7with Breadcrumbs 6Stuffed 6in Batter 4with Pork Slices 4Sauce for 4 See all 221 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes