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Baked White Fish

A whole white fish is stuffed with onion, bread, butter, and herbs, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Baked White Fish

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 the stuffing

  1. Cut out the backbone of the fish from the head to within 2 inches of the tail.

  2. In a skillet, fry the chopped onion in 1 ounce of butter until soft.

  3. Add the soaked bread, remaining butter, salt, pepper, and parsley or sage; heat through.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the fish with the mixture, sew it up with twine, and wrap it with white tape.

  2. Rub the fish with butter and place it in a baking pan with a little hot water at the bottom.

  3. Shape the fish into an 'S' and bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks with salad oil, mustard, pepper, and vinegar to taste.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

  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

White fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven to become flaky and moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the fish brown and stay moist as it bakes.
Stale bread
Soaked and squeezed, it binds the stuffing and absorbs moisture for a tender filling.
Egg yolks
Beaten yolks bind the stuffing, and mashed hard-boiled yolks thicken the dressing.
Onion
Softened in butter, it adds sweetness and savory depth to the stuffing.
Salad oil
Adds fat and smoothness to the mashed yolk dressing.

The step that matters

Baking the stuffed fish. Stuffed whole fish can cook unevenly, so it must be baked until the thickest part is cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry when overcooked, while the stuffing needs enough heat to set.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, onion, bread, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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