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Grilled Sardines in Paper Cases

Sardines wrapped in buttered paper, seasoned with salt, pepper, mushrooms, and parsley, then baked and served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Grilled Sardines in Paper Cases

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sardines

  1. Drain and wipe the sardines.

  2. Dip the sardines in oiled butter.

  3. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Roll the sardines in a mixture of chopped mushrooms and parsley.

Wrap and bake

  1. Wrap each sardine in a piece of buttered paper and twist the ends neatly.

  2. Place the wrapped sardines on a baking sheet and bake until hot at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Serve on fingers of toasted bread, still in the paper, and garnish with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Sardines
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through in their paper wrap while staying moist.
Oiled butter
Adds fat that coats the fish, carrying flavour and helping keep it moist in the heat.
Chopped mushrooms
Release moisture and savoury flavour into the paper, adding body to the filling.
Buttered paper
Encloses each sardine so it steams in its own juices and stays moist.

The step that matters

Wrap each sardine tightly in buttered paper. A snug, well-sealed wrap traps steam so the fish cooks gently and stays moist. A loose or torn wrap lets juices escape and the fish can dry out in the oven.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, mushroom, bread. 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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