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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with a crumb stuffing and optional oyster filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Prepare the fish by threading a needle through the head, middle, and tail, then tie the ends to keep its shape.

  3. Rub a baking pan with salt pork and place small pieces of pork under the fish to prevent sticking.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a bowl, mix cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, onion, parsley, capers, pickles, and melted butter to make a dry stuffing.

  2. For moist stuffing, use stale bread crumbs moistened with a beaten egg and butter or warm water.

  3. For oyster stuffing, drain oysters and roll them in seasoned cracker crumbs, then fill the fish with oysters and sprinkle remaining crumbs on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the fish, basting often with pork fat, until it is brown.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven while the stuffing flavours it.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb melted butter and form the bulk of the stuffing, giving it a dry, crumbly texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the stuffing and helping the fish brown.
Beaten egg
Binds the moist stuffing together so it holds its shape rather than falling apart.
Oysters
Add briny flavour and moisture to the stuffing when used in the oyster version.

The step that matters

Basting the fish while it bakes. Fat brushed over the surface carries heat into the skin and promotes even browning, while stopping the exposed flesh and crumbs from drying out during the long bake.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, parsley, capers, butter, egg, oyster. 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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