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Baking Fish in the Coals

A whole fish is seasoned, placed on glowing coals, covered with ashes, and cooked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,948 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baking Fish in the Coals

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. If the fish is large enough, empty it through the neck without slitting the belly.

  2. Season the inside with coarse sea salt and black pepper, and stuff with Indian meal if desired.

Bake in the coals

  1. Prepare a bed of glowing coals and lay the fish on it.

  2. Cover the fish with ashes or dead embers to prevent burning.

  3. Cook for about 30 minutes, adjusting time based on the size of the fish.

Serve

  1. Remove the fish from the fire and peel off the skin to reveal clean, well-cooked flesh.

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. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 coals to tender, flaky flesh.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the flesh from inside, drawing out flavour during the cooking.
Indian meal
Optional stuffing that can absorb juices and add body to the cavity.

The step that matters

Covering the fish with ashes or dead embers. Ash and embers insulate the fish and moderate the heat, so the outside does not scorch before the centre cooks through. Too little cover lets the skin burn, while the flesh stays underdone.

“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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