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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with a crumb and butter mixture, optionally stuffed with crackers, bread, or oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 placing it upright in the pan. For flat fish, prop it with stale bread or pared potatoes.

  3. Sew the fish into an 'S' shape using a threaded needle through the head, body, and tail, then tie the ends.

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

Make the stuffing

  1. For stuffing, mix cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, onion, parsley, capers, pickles, and melted butter.

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

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

Bake

  1. Baste the fish often with pork fat while baking.

  2. Bake until the fish 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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 and cooks through in the oven.
Cracker crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and absorb the butter and seasonings.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing and fish moist as it bakes.
Salt pork
Greases the pan and its fat is basted over the fish for flavour and browning.
Egg
Binds the optional bread stuffing so it holds together and stays moist.

The step that matters

Basting the fish often with pork fat while baking. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in dry oven heat. Regular basting with fat coats the surface, keeping the flesh moist and promoting even browning.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, parsley, capers, butter, pork, bread. 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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