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Stuffed Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with salt pork, coated in butter and flour, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and pork work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 668 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Stuffed Baked Fish

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. Clean the fish.

  2. Sprinkle salt inside and out.

  3. Stuff the fish.

  4. Sew it closed.

  5. Cut five diagonal gashes on each side of the backbone.

  6. Insert strips of fat salt pork into the gashes, alternating sides.

  7. Shape the fish with skewers into an 'S' shape.

  8. Fasten the fish with twine.

Season and bake

  1. Place the fish on a greased fish sheet in a dripping pan.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper.

  3. Brush the fish with melted butter.

  4. Dredge the fish with flour.

  5. Add small pieces of fat salt pork around the fish.

  6. Bake the fish for one hour at 400°F (200°C).

  7. Baste the fish as soon as the fat is rendered.

  8. Continue basting the fish every ten minutes.

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. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven to become flaky and moist.
Fat salt pork
Melts during baking, adding moisture and rich flavor to the lean fish.
Melted butter
Coats the surface, adding richness and helping the skin brown.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the outside brown and form a crust.

The step that matters

Baste the fish as soon as the fat is rendered. Basting spreads melted fat over the surface, keeping the fish moist and helping the skin brown evenly. Starting too late lets the surface dry out in the hot oven.

“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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