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To Broil Fish

A whole fish is broiled with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Broil Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and wipe the fish carefully.

  2. Heat a platter.

  3. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the platter.

  4. Keep the platter warm.

  5. Warm the grill.

Cook

  1. Place the fish on the grill, flesh side down.

  2. Cook until nicely browned.

  3. Turn the fish skin side down.

Serve

  1. Place the cooked fish on the platter.

  2. Baste with the butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cover with a hot platter until served.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Fish
Forms the dish itself; its flesh cooks through and its surface browns on the grill.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carries flavor, and helps keep the cooked fish moist when basted.

The step that matters

Cook until nicely browned. Fish is lean and dries out quickly under direct heat. Watching the surface closely lets it brown and cook through before the flesh becomes dry and tough.

“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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