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 ↓
Baked Fish
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the fish
Clean and rinse the fish, then wipe it dry with a cloth.
Rub the inside of the fish with salt and pepper.
If large enough, stuff the fish with bread stuffing or forcemeat.
Insert skewers or sew the fish to keep its shape, then dredge with salt, pepper, and flour.
Place the fish on a trivet or a perforated tin sheet in a baking pan.
Score the fish with gashes, insert pork strips if desired, and dredge again.
Bake and baste
Use plenty of butter or oil to prevent drying, and baste frequently while baking.
Cover the bottom of the pan with hot water and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for the first hour.
Increase the oven temperature to 400°F (200°C) and continue baking.
Baste every 15 minutes and renew the water in the pan as needed.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,668 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Fish + porktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together668 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Fish
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through gently in the oven's dry heat.
- Butter or oil
- Adds fat that keeps the surface moist and prevents the fish from drying out.
- Flour
- Dredged onto the fish to help form a light coating that browns during baking.
- Bread stuffing or forcemeat
- Fills the cavity, adding moisture and flavour while the fish bakes.
- Pork strips
- Adds fat and savoury flavour as they bake into the scored fish.
The step that matters
Baste frequently with fat. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in dry oven heat. Regular basting with butter or oil coats the surface and keeps the flesh moist while it cooks.
“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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