Skip to main content
Main

Baked Fish

A whole fish seasoned with salt, stuffed, and baked with bacon, optionally floured, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fish and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,432 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

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. Wash, wipe, and dry the fish.

  2. Rub the fish with coarse sea salt.

  3. Fill the fish with stuffing and sew the edges together.

  4. Cut shallow gashes on each side of the fish and insert strips of bacon.

  5. Dredge the fish with flour if using.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the fish in a 400°F (200°C) oven without water.

  2. Baste the fish with fat every 10 minutes after the flour has browned.

  3. Alternatively, cook the fish in enough milk to cover the bottom of the pan instead of using fat.

  4. The fish is done when the flesh is firm and separates easily from the bone.

  5. Serve with tomato 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. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 to flaky, firm flesh when baked.
Strips of bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the fish from within as it cooks.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the skin brown and form a light crust.
Milk
Cooks in the pan as an alternative to fat, adding moisture and gently browning the fish.

The step that matters

Baste the fish after the flour has browned. Basting with fat every 10 minutes keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly. Starting too early can cause the flour to burn or the fish to dry out.

“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.

More baked fish recipes

with Tomatoes 7with Breadcrumbs 6Stuffed 6in Batter 4with Pork Slices 4Sauce for 4 See all 221 →

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes