Skip to main content
Main

Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with bread or forcemeat, seasoned, and baked with butter or oil, sometimes with pork strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and rinse the fish, then wipe it dry with a cloth.

  2. Rub the inside of the fish with salt and pepper.

  3. Stuff the fish with bread stuffing or forcemeat, then secure it with skewers or string.

  4. Dredge the fish with salt, pepper, and flour.

  5. Score the fish with gashes and insert strips of pork if desired.

Bake

  1. Place the fish on a trivet or a perforated tin sheet in a baking pan.

  2. Add plenty of butter or oil to keep the fish moist and baste frequently while baking.

  3. Cover the bottom of the pan with hot water and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for the first hour.

  4. Increase the temperature to 400°F (200°C) and continue baking, basting every 15 minutes.

  5. Renew the water in the pan as needed, ensuring the bottom is just covered.

  6. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours, or 15 minutes per pound, until nicely browned.

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

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

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through as it bakes.
Butter or oil
Adds fat and moisture, helping keep the fish from drying out while baking.
Flour
Coats the surface, helping it brown and develop a golden crust.
Bread stuffing or forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and flavour as the fish cooks.

The step that matters

Keeping the fish moist while baking. Fish is lean and cooks quickly, so it dries out easily. Regular basting with fat and keeping a little hot water in the pan help the flesh stay moist while the surface browns.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes