Skip to main content
Main

Baked Shad

A whole shad stuffed with breadcrumb mixture, salt pork, and herbs, baked in a pan with boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Shad

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Scrape the shad free from scales.

  2. Make a short opening down the belly and remove the insides.

  3. Wash the fish well inside and out, then wipe dry with a clean towel.

  4. Rub the fish inside and out with coarse sea salt.

Stuff and score

  1. In a bowl, mix stale bread crumbs, chopped parsley, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the fish and sew it up with soft yarn.

  3. Score one side of the fish with a sharp knife, making scores about one inch apart.

  4. Insert strips of salt pork into each gash.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a baking pan and dredge it thickly with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Cover the bottom of the pan with boiling water.

  3. Place the pan in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Bake for 15 minutes for every pound of fish, basting every 10 minutes with the pan gravy.

  5. Add more boiling water as it evaporates to cover the bottom of the pan.

  6. Garnish with slices of lemon, fried potato balls, and 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 flesh becomes flaky and moist as it bakes.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the fish as it bakes, adding moisture and savory flavor.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb juices inside the stuffing, keeping it moist and lightly binding it.
Flour
Dredged on the outside, it helps the coating brown and thicken the pan gravy.

The step that matters

Adding boiling water to the pan. Keeping water covering the pan bottom creates steam and prevents the fish and drippings from scorching, while the basting builds a moist, flavorful gravy. Replenish it as it evaporates.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, pepper, pork, flour, fried potato):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, pepper, pork, flour, fried potato. 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.

More baked shad recipes

Dressing 3 See all 114 →

You might also like

Fried BreadFried Bread30 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipes