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Baking

To Bake

A simple baked fish seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Bake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the fish down the back.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in the oven.

  2. Baste with melted butter.

  3. Garnish with slices of lemon.

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

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

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

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

  3. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Is the main protein that cooks through and becomes flaky when baked.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture, carrying flavour and helping the surface stay rich while baking.

The step that matters

Baste with melted butter. Basting spreads the butter over the surface so the fish stays moist instead of drying out in the oven heat. Applying it while the fish is still warm helps the butter coat evenly.

“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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