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Baked Shad

A whole shad stuffed with breadcrumbs, parsley, pork, and butter, baked and served with a butter‑pepper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Shad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the fish down from the gills about six inches and remove the innards.

  2. Wash and scrape the fish clean, then wipe it dry.

Stuff and bake

  1. Make a dressing with bread crumbs, chopped parsley, pork, pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Stuff the shad with the dressing and sew it up.

  3. Place the shad in a baking pan and top with thin slices of pork or bits of butter.

  4. Dredge the fish with a little flour.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Once done, transfer the shad to a serving dish.

  2. In the baking pan, add a piece of butter, some pepper, salt, and a little hot water.

  3. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  4. Pour the boiling liquid over the fish.

  5. Garnish with parsley.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

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

Shad
The fish is the main component, cooked whole and stuffed before baking.
Bread crumbs
Form the body of the dressing and absorb juices from the fish and pork.
Pork
Adds fat and richness to the dressing and topping, keeping the fish moist as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the dressing and topping, promoting browning and moisture.

The step that matters

Sew up the stuffed shad securely. Stuffing expands slightly as it heats and can fall out if the opening is not closed tightly, leaving the fish dry and the dressing loose in the pan.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork, pepper, butter, flour. 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.

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