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Shad, Stuffed and Baked

A baked shad stuffed with bread mixture, seasoned, and served with a sauce and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Shad, Stuffed and Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Fill the cleaned shad with veal or oyster forcemeat or the prepared bread mixture.

  3. Moisten the bread crumbs with hot water, press out excess water, and mix with butter, sage, pepper, and salt.

  4. Sew up the fish with soft cotton and dredge it with flour.

Bake

  1. Place the fish in a dripping pan on a trivet, season with pepper and salt, and dot with butter.

  2. Pour 1 pint of water around the fish for basting.

  3. Bake for 1 hour, basting frequently and adding more water if necessary.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, mix 1 heaped teaspoon of flour with a little water, add butter, and stir in ½ pint of gravy until thickened.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to the sauce.

  3. Serve the fish on a hot dish, strain the sauce over it, and garnish with parsley and lemon.

  4. Serve with mashed potatoes.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole around its stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and form a soft stuffing that holds the fish's cavity together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the fish and stuffing from drying in the oven.
Flour
Dredging coats the skin and helps thicken the sauce made from the baking juices.
Gravy
Provides the base liquid of the sauce, adding savoury depth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Basting and adding water during the bake. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in dry heat. Regular basting and keeping water in the pan supply moisture and steam, so the flesh stays tender while the stuffing 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.

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