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Baked Fish with Tomatoes

A whole fish baked with canned tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Fish with Tomatoes

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Bake

  1. Place the fish in a baking pan.

  2. Pour the can of tomatoes over the fish.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Bake until the fish is cooked through.

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

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

  2. Fish + tomatotop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hepten-3-one (metal).

  3. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

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 and becomes flaky and opaque as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Adds moisture and acidity, keeping the fish moist while it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until the fish is cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry if overbaked, so check that it is opaque and flakes easily at the thickest part rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper. 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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