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To Broil Whitefish

A whitefish fillet broiled over hot coals, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and served with lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Broil Whitefish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale, wash, and split the whitefish down the back.

Broil

  1. Place it on a broiler over hot coals.

  2. Turn often to keep the juices in.

  3. Cook well.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot platter and season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Serve with slices of lemon.

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

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Whitefish + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Whitefish + lemontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Whitefish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole-split over direct heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture when seasoned over the hot fish.

The step that matters

Turning the fish often over the coals. Frequent turning exposes each side to heat evenly and limits scorching, helping the flesh cook through while keeping juices in, as the record notes.

“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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