Skip to main content
Baking

Courtbullion Sauce

A fish sauce baked with tomatoes, peppers, onions, butter, corned pork, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Courtbullion Sauce

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Split the fish open and remove the backbone.

  3. Place the fish on a roasting tin.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the fish with sliced tomatoes, diced green peppers, and sliced onions, seasoning with salt and pepper between each layer.

  2. Dot the top with small pieces of butter and add slices of corned pork.

  3. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 gently in its own juices and the tomato base.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that build the sauce as the dish bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown and the topping crisp.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that browns and crisps in the oven while sealing in moisture below.
Corned pork
Adds salty, savoury fat that flavours the layers as it cooks.

The step that matters

Layering the fish with vegetables and seasoning. Seasoning between each layer spreads salt and pepper through the dish, since the fish and vegetables release liquid that carries flavour into the sauce during baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, tomato, pepper, butter, pork, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, tomato, pepper, butter, pork, bread. 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.

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes