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Planked White Fish with Potato Roses

A white fish fillet baked on a plank with potato roses, butter, flour, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 White Fish with Potato Roses

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Clean the fish by removing the backbone, head, tail, and fins.

  3. Spread the fish with soft butter.

  4. Dredge the fish with flour, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and lemon juice.

  5. Heat a plank in a pan in the oven.

Bake and shape

  1. Place the fish on the plank and bake for about 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the fish and surround it with prepared mashed potatoes.

  3. Return the fish and potatoes to the oven and bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes, depending on thickness.

  4. Prepare the mashed potatoes with less cream or milk, place in a pastry bag, and pipe into rose shapes around the fish.

  5. Brush the potato roses lightly with the egg yolk mixed with a few spoonfuls of cream.

  6. Brown the potatoes quickly in the oven.

Serve

  1. Garnish the dish with lemon and parsley before serving on the plank.

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

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  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

Firm white fish
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the fish stay moist during baking.
Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the surface brown and seasoning cling.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft base that is piped into roses and browns in the oven.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the potatoes, it helps them brown to a glossy golden finish.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the potatoes, keeping them smooth for piping.

The step that matters

Brown the potatoes quickly in the oven. Potato roses can dry out or overbrown if left too long. A short, watched bake browns the egg-washed surface while the interior stays soft and moist.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, egg, cream):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, pepper, lemon, egg, 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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