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Halibut Steak Baked with Tomatoes

Halibut steak baked in a tomato sauce with butter, flour, sugar, pepper, onion juice, green pepper, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Halibut Steak Baked with Tomatoes

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.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a rich sauce by cooking tomatoes with butter, flour, sugar, pepper, onion juice, salt, and minced green pepper for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the sauce through a colander.

  3. Let the sauce cool.

Prepare the fish

  1. Marinate the halibut in oil and lemon juice for 1 hour.

  2. Place the halibut on a grating in a covered roaster.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the halibut.

  2. Cover the roaster.

  3. Bake for 12 minutes per pound at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the fish.

  5. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  6. Serve hot.

  7. Pour the sauce over the halibut.

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

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the body of the sauce and provide moisture and acidity for the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks.
Halibut steak
The main protein, which cooks gently in the covered roaster with the sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and browning on top of the fish.

The step that matters

Cool the sauce before pouring it over the fish. Flour thickens the sauce as it cooks, and pouring it over fish while still very hot can cook the surface unevenly. Letting it cool first, as the record directs, keeps the sauce spoonable and the fish texture gentle.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, flour, sugar, pepper, lemon, parmesan cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, sugar, pepper, lemon, parmesan cheese. 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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