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Fishy Baked

A whole fish baked with suet, breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasonings, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Fishy Baked

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 fish

  1. Scale and clean the fish without cutting it open.

  2. Fill the fish with forcemeat and sew or pin up the slit.

  3. Brush the fish with egg and place it in a well-buttered baking tin.

  4. Dust the fish generously with breadcrumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C), basting with butter frequently.

  2. Cook for 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

  3. Serve on a hot dish garnished with parsley and lemon slices, with sauce on the side.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Brushed on the fish to help the breadcrumbs adhere and form a golden coating.
White breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the fish as it bakes.
Suet
Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Butter
Basted over the fish to add moisture and promote even browning.

The step that matters

Basting with butter frequently. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in dry oven heat. Regular basting with melted butter keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lemon, parsley, egg, anchovy, pepper, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, parsley, egg, anchovy, pepper, butter. 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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