Skip to main content
Main

Baked Halibut

A halibut fillet baked with salt water, butter, lemon, onion, catsup, roux, and claret sauce.

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

Why it works: Butter and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Baked Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the halibut in cold salt water for 1 hour to remove fish oil flavor.

  2. Wipe the fish dry.

  3. Score the skin.

  4. Place the fish in a baking pan.

Bake and baste

  1. Pour boiling water over the fish.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Bake for 12 minutes per pound.

  4. Baste generously with melted butter and lemon juice mixed with onion juice.

  5. Transfer the fish to a hot dish.

  6. Keep warm over boiling water.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in catsup and brown roux.

  2. Add hot water if too thick.

  3. Add claret.

  4. Strain some sauce over the fish.

  5. Serve the rest in a gravy boat.

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 + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main protein; baking gently sets its flesh into moist, flaky pieces.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and keeping the fish moist while it bakes.
Brown roux
Flour and fat cooked together to thicken the sauce into a smooth, rich body.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor that gives the sauce depth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the butter basting sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Bake for 12 minutes per pound. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and tough once overcooked, so timing by weight matters. Keeping it covered while baking traps steam and helps it cook evenly and stay moist.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion. 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.

More baked halibut recipes

or Salmon 16with Tomato Sauce 5Steaks 4 See all 59 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes