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Plaice, Baked

A baked plaice dish with onions, butter, parsley, breadcrumbs, and stock, served with its own gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plaice, Baked

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 fish

  1. Empty and clean the plaice, sprinkle with salt, and let sit for 2 hours.

  2. Drain and dry the fish with a soft cloth.

  3. Cut the fish into 2-inch wide slices.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread half of the minced onions in a baking dish, add butter and 1 teaspoon of chopped parsley.

  2. Layer the plaice slices on top of the onions, then cover with remaining onions, parsley, and bread-crumbs.

  3. Add pepper and salt if needed, place fat pieces on top, and pour stock or water into the dish.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 20 minutes until the flesh shrinks from the bone.

  5. Serve with its own gravy.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Plaice
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as the flesh firms and shrinks from the bone.
Fine bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that helps brown the surface and hold moisture in.
Butter or beef dripping
Adds fat that enriches the flavour and helps the fish and crumbs brown.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and flavour that perfumes the fish as it bakes.
Stock or water
Creates steam and a light gravy that keeps the fish moist while it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking time and doneness. Plaice is lean and cooks quickly, so it can dry out past the point where the flesh flakes and pulls away from the bone. Checking early in the 10 to 20 minute window helps keep it moist.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, 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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