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Halibut, Stuffed and Baked

Halibut stuffed with oyster filling, baked with lemon and butter, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Halibut, Stuffed and Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the halibut well.

  2. Fill the halibut with oyster stuffing.

  3. Bind the halibut securely.

  4. Place the halibut in a baking dish.

  5. Squeeze the lemon juice over the fish.

  6. Dot the fish with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), basting continually.

  2. Drain the fish carefully.

  3. Transfer the fish to a hot dish.

  4. Pour the boiling hot brown gravy over the fish.

  5. Serve.

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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + lemontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,942 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

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into moist, flaky portions.
Oyster stuffing
Fills the fish, adding flavour and moisture as it cooks inside the binding.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the fish and helps keep its surface moist while baking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.
Brown gravy
Adds savoury moisture and richness when poured over the baked fish.

The step that matters

Basting continually while baking. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Regular basting spoons juices back over the surface, keeping the flesh moist and tender until it is cooked through.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Grapefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter. 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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