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Baked Shad

Baked Shad is a fish baked with butter, egg, herbs, and a sauce of catsup, flour, lemon, Sherry, currant jelly, and Worcestershire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Baked Shad

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Mix melted butter, egg, salt, pepper, and parsley in a bowl.

  2. Stuff the fish with the mixture and sew it closed.

  3. Place the fish in a baking pan.

  4. Cover the fish with melted butter.

  5. Add water to the pan.

Bake

  1. Bake the fish in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Baste the fish frequently with melted butter.

  3. When the fish is browned, reduce the oven temperature to 300°F (150°C).

  4. Cook the fish until done, about 15 minutes per pound.

  5. Transfer the fish to a hot platter and cover.

Make the sauce

  1. Add catsup to the baking pan.

  2. Add browned flour mixed with cold water to the pan.

  3. Add lemon juice to the pan.

  4. Add Sherry wine to the pan.

  5. Add currant jelly to the pan.

  6. Add Worcestershire sauce to the pan.

  7. Heat the sauce to boiling.

  8. Stir the sauce constantly.

  9. Serve the sauce in a gravy boat.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Binds the stuffing mixture so it holds together inside the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish brown while baking.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth, slightly toasted sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce, balancing the acidity of the lemon and wine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its sweetness.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce to boiling while stirring constantly. Flour thickens only when it reaches a boil and is kept moving. Stirring spreads the starch evenly so lumps do not form, and boiling fully activates the thickening, giving a smooth sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, pepper, flour, lemon, sherry, wine):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, flour, lemon, sherry, wine. 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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