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Baked Shad

A whole shad stuffed with a forcemeat of roe, mushrooms, breadcrumbs, butter, herbs, and baked with stock, lemon, sherry, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked Shad

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

  1. Prepare the forcemeat by mixing the roe, mushrooms, bread crumbs, butter, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  2. Stuff the fish with the forcemeat and sew it up.

  3. Place the fish in a well-buttered earthenware dish.

Bake and baste

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, basting with a mixture of white stock, lemon juice, sherry, and onion.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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 and stuffed.
Roe
Binds the forcemeat and adds richness and a soft, moist texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the forcemeat a firmer, sliceable body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the fish and crumbs brown in the oven.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the basting liquid, sharpening the flavor of the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and roe.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Basting with the stock, lemon, sherry and onion mixture adds moisture and flavor to the surface 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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