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Broiled Trout

Broiled trout seasoned with butter, parsley, lemon, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Trout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the trout.

  2. Make three diagonal cuts on each side of the trout.

  3. Prepare a hot fire.

  4. Grease a wire gridiron.

Cook

  1. Place the trout on the gridiron.

  2. Turn the trout frequently.

  3. Cook the trout until firm and the flesh separates from the bone.

  4. Mix the butter with chopped parsley until green.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the cooked trout on a hot dish.

  2. Squeeze lemon juice over the trout.

  3. Add pepper and salt to the trout.

  4. Baste the trout with the parsley-butter.

  5. Serve the trout hot.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brook trout
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until its flesh turns firm and flakes from the bone.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying the parsley flavour when basted over the fish.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and colour to the parsley-butter basting.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild, rich flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Cook the trout until firm and the flesh separates from the bone. Over a hot fire the fish cooks quickly and can dry out or burn on the outside before the centre is done. Frequent turning spreads the heat evenly, and the flesh pulling away from the bone is the sign it is cooked through.

“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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