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Baked Fish

Baked fish stuffed with butter, breadcrumbs, herbs, and optional pork, then baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare the fish by filling it with the stuffing mixture.

  3. Sew up the side where you added the stuffing.

Bake

  1. Place a few small lumps of butter on top of the fish.

  2. Bake the fish until cooked through, about 20-30 minutes depending on size.

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 + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Thyme + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main dish, cooked through in the oven with the stuffing inside.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and hold the stuffing together while the fish bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown as it melts.
Dried thyme or sage
Adds herbal aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Bake the fish until cooked through. Fish is done when its flesh turns opaque and flakes easily at the thickest point. Baking time depends on size, so checking the thickest part, rather than relying only on the time, helps avoid dry or undercooked fish.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, butter, pepper, pork):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, butter, pepper, pork. 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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