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Broiled Shad

Broiled shad fillets seasoned with butter, pepper, and sea salt, served hot with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Shad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the roes from the shad, clean, and dry thoroughly.

  2. Cut the shad into straight halves and lay it with the roes on a well-heated and greased grill over moderate heat.

Broil

  1. Cover the grill to cook through while browning, and turn the shad only once.

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, transfer to a warm dish and spread the butter on top, then season with pepper and salt.

  2. Place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a moment, then garnish with fresh parsley before serving.

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

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

  2. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Is the main fish, cooked through on the grill while its surface browns.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting over the hot fish to carry flavour.

The step that matters

Turning the shad only once. Fish flakes apart when handled repeatedly, and each turn breaks the browned surface. Turning once lets a crust form and keeps the halves intact while the interior cooks through.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits about as well
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley. 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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