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Broiled Fish, with Maître d'Hôtel Butter

Broiled fish fillets topped with butter, lemon juice, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Broiled Fish, with Maître d'Hôtel Butter

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare and broil

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Season the fish fillets with salt and pepper.

  3. Broil the fish for about 5-7 minutes on each side until cooked through.

Make the butter and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter, lemon juice, and parsley.

  2. Serve the broiled fish topped with the Maître d'Hôtel butter.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish fillets
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a flaky, opaque texture under heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the fish moist as it melts.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the flavour of the fish.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and colour to the butter topping.

The step that matters

Broil the fish until just cooked through. Fish proteins tighten and squeeze out moisture once overcooked, so it turns dry and tough. Watching the fish closely during the 5-7 minutes per side keeps it tender and moist.

“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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