Skip to main content
Main

Baked Fish

A fish baked with a breadcrumb and butter dressing, salt pork, onions, potatoes, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Fish

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 the stuffing

  1. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, chopped onion, melted butter, beaten egg, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Stuff the fish with the dressing and tie it securely.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the stuffed fish in a pan with a little hot water.

  3. Lay pieces of salt pork on top of the fish and season with thyme.

  4. Bake the fish, basting very often until 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

  4. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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, cooked through by baking in the pan.
Salt pork
Lays fat over the fish as it bakes, adding richness and moisture to the surface.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the beaten egg and butter to form a binding stuffing that holds its shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, contributing moisture and flavor.

The step that matters

Bake the fish, basting very often until cooked through.. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist as heat cooks the fish, helping prevent it from drying out before the center is done.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, tomato, pork, potato, pepper, thyme, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, tomato, pork, potato, pepper, thyme, 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.

More baked fish recipes

with Tomatoes 7with Breadcrumbs 6Stuffed 6in Batter 4with Pork Slices 4Sauce for 4 See all 221 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipes