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Baked Bass with Shrimp Sauce

A baked bass topped with shrimp sauce made from butter, flour, and shrimp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and shrimp are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Baked Bass with Shrimp Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Marinate the cleaned fish in oil and vinegar for 1 hour.

  2. Place the fish in a baking pan with slices of salt pork underneath and on top.

  3. Add enough boiling water to prevent burning and 1 teaspoon of butter to the water.

Bake

  1. Baste the fish 2-3 times during the hour of baking.

  2. Strain the gravy and set aside.

Make the shrimp sauce

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter, add 1 tablespoon of flour, and cook until brown.

  2. Add 1 cup of the liquid from the baking pan, adding boiling water if necessary.

  3. Cook until thick, stirring constantly, then season with cayenne and lemon juice.

  4. Stir in the chopped shrimp, bring to a boil, pour over the fish, and serve.

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. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pork + shrimptop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together799 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned in butter, it thickens the pan liquid into a smooth, rich sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour brown for a nutty flavor.
Salt pork
Lays fat over the fish as it bakes, keeping it moist and adding savory flavor.
Shrimp
Adds savory seafood flavor and texture to the sauce.
Vinegar
Acidic marinade that tenderizes the fish and brightens its flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and butter roux until brown. Cooking the flour in fat removes its raw taste and thickens the sauce; stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching, and the browning adds nutty flavor. Under-cooking leaves a pasty taste, while over-browning turns it bitter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pork, butter, flour, shrimp):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pork, butter, flour, shrimp. 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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