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Baked Pish

Baked fish stuffed with tomatoes, shrimp, mushrooms, oysters, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Baked Pish

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).

  2. Rub the fish inside and out with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Prepare the dressing by mixing the tomatoes, shrimp, mushrooms, oysters, and chopped onion.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the fish with the dressing and place any remaining dressing on top.

  2. Bake the fish in the oven until cooked through, then serve in the baking 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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks through in the oven.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury flavour to the dressing as it softens.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that keep the stuffing and fish from drying out.

The step that matters

Bake the fish until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and firm if overbaked, so check that it flakes easily at the thickest point. The dressing inside also needs to reach a safe, hot temperature while the fish stays moist.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, tomato, shrimp, mushroom, oyster. 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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