Skip to main content
Main

Whiting, with Caper Sauce

A baked whiting served with a butter and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and capers are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,088 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Whiting, with Caper Sauce

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 the fish

  1. Clean, scrape, and dry the whiting.

  2. Score the fish on both sides to a depth of ¼ inch.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Place in a buttered baking dish and pour the light wine over them.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done, about 15 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, mix the melted butter with the fish liquor and bruised capers.

  4. Pour the sauce over the fish and 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. Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Whiting + caperstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + caperstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 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

Whiting
The main fish, which turns flaky and tender when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the caper sauce and the baking dish.
Light wine
Adds moisture and light acidity to the fish as it bakes.
Bruised capers
Add a sharp, briny flavour that cuts through the rich butter.

The step that matters

Bake until done, not longer. Whiting is lean and delicate, so overbaking dries the flesh and makes it tough. Check for flaking at the thickest part around the stated time.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, pepper, butter, wine. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes