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Halibut Steak a LA Jardiniere

Halibut steak cooked with onions, carrots, tomatoes, green pepper, peas, butter, wine, and browned flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Halibut Steak a LA Jardiniere

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the halibut steak in saltwater for 1 hour.

  2. Wipe the steak dry.

  3. Rub melted butter on both sides of the steak.

Bake

  1. Place the steak on onion rings in a covered roaster.

  2. Arrange the diced carrot, whole tomatoes, sliced green pepper, and green peas around the steak, keeping each vegetable separate.

  3. Add enough hot salted water to prevent scorching.

  4. Place 1 tablespoon of butter on top.

  5. Bake covered for 12 minutes per pound, basting three times.

Serve with sauce

  1. Transfer the dish to a hot platter.

  2. Arrange the vegetables around the fish on the platter.

  3. Add white wine to the pan juices with 1 teaspoon of browned flour and boil once.

  4. Serve as a sauce.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut steak
Forms the main protein, cooked gently by baking covered so it stays moist.
Melted butter
Coats the surface of the fish, adding richness and helping it stay moist in the oven.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the pan juices that form the sauce.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan juices into a sauce.

The step that matters

Baking covered for 12 minutes per pound, basting three times. Covered baking with regular basting keeps the fish moist while it cooks through; too long in the oven dries out the flesh and toughens it.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, tomato, pepper, white wine, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, tomato, pepper, white wine, 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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