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Planked Shad

A shad fish is laid on a wooden plank and cooked over a fire, basted with saltwater, butter, and walnut catsup, served with pickled walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Planked Shad

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plank

  1. Prepare a thick oak board with wooden pegs.

  2. Open and spread the fish, then lay it on the board and secure it with the pegs.

Cook

  1. Place the plank before a clear fire, resting one end in a shallow iron pan with a little salt and water.

  2. Baste the fish with the saltwater mixture while toasting.

  3. When almost cooked, baste with butter.

Serve

  1. Serve by adding walnut catsup to the gravy, pouring it over the fish, and garnishing with pickled walnuts.

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. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Spread + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl acetate (pineapple, fruity).

  4. Fish + walnuttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Spread + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together236 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shad fish
Is the main protein, cooked gently on the board so it stays moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the fish brown and taste savoury at the end.
Walnut catsup
Adds a dark, tangy, savoury flavour to the gravy poured over the fish.

The step that matters

Basting with the saltwater mixture while toasting. The salted water keeps the surface of the fish moist as the heat dries it, and seasons the flesh. If the fish is left unbasted, the exposed surface can dry out before the centre cooks through.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, spread, butter):

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Peasfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, spread, butter. 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.

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