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To Bake Fish

A whole fish is stuffed with salt pork and breadcrumbs, then baked with water and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Bake Fish

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. Wash and dry the fish inside and out with a towel.

  2. Make gashes in the fish, ½ inch deep, 2 inches long, and 1 inch apart.

  3. Mix salt pork, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper to make the dressing.

  4. Stuff the dressing inside the fish and sew it up.

  5. Insert narrow strips of salt pork into the gashes.

  6. Place the fish on a strip of tin the size of the fish.

  7. Dredge the fish with flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Put the tin in a baking pan.

  3. Add ½ cup of water and 2 teaspoons of butter to the pan.

  4. Baste the fish often, adding more water if it boils away.

  5. Check for doneness with a knitting needle.

  6. Once done, lift the fish and tin out of the baking pan.

  7. Transfer the fish to a hot platter 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat into the fish and its dressing, adding richness and savory flavor as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and fat in the dressing, giving the stuffing a soft, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the pan liquid, supporting browning and a rich taste.
Flour
Dries the fish surface and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Baste the fish often, adding more water if it boils away. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in dry oven heat. Basting with pan liquid keeps the surface moist, and adding water stops the liquid from evaporating and scorching the pan.

“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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