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Baked Shad

Baked shad served with a mushroom ketchup gravy thickened with butter and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Baked 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.

Bake the shad

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Lay the cleaned and stuffed shad in a baking pan.

  3. Pour in the water and mushroom ketchup.

  4. Add pepper, a little vinegar, coarse sea salt, cloves, and garlic.

  5. Baste the fish well while baking.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Once done, transfer the fish to a platter.

  2. Stir the gravy until reduced, then thicken with butter and browned flour.

  3. Pour the thickened gravy over the fish 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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
The main fish, whose stuffing and flesh cook together in the pan.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savory, umami depth to the liquid that becomes the gravy.
Butter
Enriches the gravy with fat and gives it a smooth, glossy body when thickened.
Browned flour
Thickens the reduced liquid into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the gravy until reduced, then thicken with butter and browned flour. Reducing concentrates the flavor of the pan liquid. Adding the butter and flour off the heat or at a gentle simmer, while stirring, prevents lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, mushroom, ketchup, pepper, vinegar, garlic, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, mushroom, ketchup, pepper, vinegar, garlic, butter. 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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