Name: Baked Halibut
Ingredients: Halibut; Pepper; Coarse sea salt; Milk; Bread crumbs

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Baked Halibut

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

Clean the fish.
Rub the fish with coarse sea salt and pepper.
Place the fish in a baking dish.

Bake

Pour milk into the pan to a depth of 1 inch.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

Finish and serve

Remove the fish from the milk and take out the bones.
Serve with drawn butter sauce mixed with chopped eggs.
Sprinkle browned buttered bread crumbs on top.

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.

Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut: Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender pieces.
Milk: Surrounds the fish during baking, helping keep it moist and tender.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden topping when browned in butter.
Eggs (in the method): Chopped into the drawn butter sauce, adding richness and body.

“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.