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Baking

Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with a savory dressing of crumbs, butter, onion juice, and hot water, topped with pork or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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 fish

  1. Rub the fish inside and out with coarse sea salt.

  2. Stuff the fish with the dressing mixture.

  3. Sew or tie the fish closed and place it on a buttered plank or tin.

Bake

  1. Dredge the fish with flour and lay thin slices of pork or bits of butter on top.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours, basting occasionally.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the dressing and the top, helping the fish stay juicy and brown.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the stuffing body and structure.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and help the dressing hold together without turning gummy.
Flour
Dries the surface and helps it take on color and a crisp, golden finish.

The step that matters

Basting occasionally during the bake. Basting spreads melted fat and juices over the surface, keeping the fish moist while the outside browns. Skipping it can leave the skin dry and the flesh likely to firm up too much.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, pepper, butter, flour, pork):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pepper, butter, flour, pork. 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 →

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