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Broiled Shad

A whole shad fillet cooked over fire, basted with butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, parsley, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Broiled Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the cleaned shad with a clean cloth.

Broil

  1. Place the shad between the bars of a buttered double-wire gridiron.

  2. Cook the shad over the fire, basting with melted butter as it browns. Cook thoroughly on both sides.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix parsley, butter, salt, pepper, and lemon juice in a bowl. Spread the mixture over the cooked shad before serving.

  2. Garnish with additional parsley or lemon if desired.

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 + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Forms the main body of the dish; its firm, flaky flesh holds together over the heat.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the surface brown as it is basted over the fire.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and balances the butter.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma and a clean green flavor to the finished fish.

The step that matters

Cook thoroughly on both sides. Shad has many fine bones and fish cooks quickly over direct heat. Cooking through both sides ensures the flesh becomes opaque and flakes easily, while basting keeps the surface from drying out.

“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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