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Baked Halibut

A baked halibut served with a walnut catsup sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the halibut in a mixture of salt and water for 2 hours.

  2. Wipe the fish dry.

  3. Score the top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour, basting often with melted butter and water.

  2. Check for doneness with a fork.

  3. Transfer the fish to a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the gravy from the dripping pan into a saucepan.

  2. Stir in walnut catsup, lemon juice, and butter mixed with browned flour.

  3. Boil the sauce.

  4. Pour the sauce into a sauceboat.

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. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while basting, and enriches the sauce.
Browned flour
Thickens the sauce and adds a toasty, nutty flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavour.
Walnut catsup
Contributes a deep, savoury flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Check for doneness with a fork. Halibut turns dry and tough once overcooked. A fork should slide easily into the thickest part and the flesh should flake, so check before the full hour is up if the fish is thin.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, walnut, flour. 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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