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Planked Shad

A whole shad roasted on a heated hardwood board, basted with butter and seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon.

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 ↓

Planked Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the scales, clean, wash, and split the shad.

  2. Place the shad skin-side down on a hardwood board about 1.5 inches thick and secure it with tacks.

Cook on the plank

  1. Heat the board over the fire, basting the fish with butter occasionally.

  2. Roast until the fish is cooked through.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add small bits of butter.

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Is the main protein, cooked through on the board to become flaky and tender.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the fish from drying out as it roasts.

The step that matters

Heating the board over the fire. The wood must heat gradually so it smokes and flavors the fish without scorching or burning through before the fish is cooked. Basting with butter helps keep the surface moist during this stage.

“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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