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Baked Red Snapper

A whole red snapper stuffed with oyster and cracker mixture, baked with pork fat, tomato, onion, and served with Hollandaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Red Snapper

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. Draw, clean, and wipe the red snapper, then wash it inside and out with salad oil and lemon.

  2. Mix the egg, powdered cracker, chopped oysters, onion juice, butter, salt, paprika, and parsley to make the stuffing.

  3. Moisten the stuffing with cream and oyster liquor until quite moist.

  4. Fill the fish with the stuffing.

  5. Sew the edges together with fine white cotton.

Bake and serve

  1. Place minced fat pork on the grating of a covered roaster.

  2. Add slices of tomato and onion.

  3. Lay the fish on top.

  4. Dredge the top with salt and flour.

  5. Add more minced pork.

  6. Place the fish in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) and add 1 cup of boiling water.

  7. Cover and baste often, adding more water after each basting.

  8. Bake for about 1 hour.

  9. Remove to a hot dish and serve with Hollandaise 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Red snapper
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through gently in the covered roaster.
Oysters
Add briny flavor and moisture to the stuffing.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when filled and baked.
Powdered cracker
Absorbs moisture and gives the stuffing body and structure.
Fat pork
Bastes the fish with fat as it bakes, adding richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Cover and baste often, adding water after each basting. Steam from the covered roaster and added water keep the lean fish moist, so the flesh does not dry out during the hour-long bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (snapper, lemon, egg, oyster, butter, parsley, cream):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against snapper, lemon, egg, oyster, butter, parsley, cream. 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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