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Filet of Bluefish

Filet of bluefish is baked in a bag with onion, stock, lemon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Filet of Bluefish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the bluefish slices with salt and pepper, then roll them in flour.

  2. Sprinkle the minced onion over each piece of fish.

Cook

  1. Add the fish stock, lemon juice, and butter to the bag.

  2. Close the bag and cook for 40 minutes.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Bluefish
Forms the main body of the dish, with firm slices that flake when cooked through.
Flour
Coats the fish, helping it brown lightly and thickening the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds savory aroma that spreads into the fish and the cooking liquid.
Fish stock
Supplies liquid that keeps the fish moist while it cooks in the bag.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fish and balances the richness of the butter.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the sauce a rounder, richer texture.

The step that matters

Close the bag and cook for 40 minutes. Sealing the bag traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own liquid. Overcooking dries out the flesh, so the time should not be extended without checking the fish.

Swap the onion

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

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

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