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Baked Halibut a LA Cr&Ole

A baked halibut steak topped with garlic, tomatoes, breadcrumbs, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Baked Halibut a LA Cr&Ole

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. Remove all bones from the halibut steak.

  2. Place the steak in a baking dish and sprinkle with garlic.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover with a layer of tomatoes, then a layer of bread crumbs, bits of butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add another layer of tomatoes on top.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

  4. Serve in the same dish.

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 + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut steak
Provides the firm, flaky fish that forms the main body of the dish.
Stewed tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that keep the fish from drying out while baking.
Dried bread crumbs
Form a crumb layer that absorbs juices and browns lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and helps the crumbs brown.

The step that matters

Baking the halibut. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and tough if overbaked. Keeping the fish covered by tomatoes and crumbs helps trap moisture during the 20 minutes in the oven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, garlic, butter, pepper, 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.

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