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Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with a bread, butter, egg, onion, and salt pork mixture, then baked until the pork is shriveled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale the fish, wash it, and dry it inside and out.

  2. Make the stuffing by mixing grated bread, melted butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, raw egg, celery salt, and chopped onion.

  3. Tie thin slices of salt pork over the fish.

Set up the pans

  1. Fill a dripping pan halfway with hot water.

  2. Place a gridiron on the pan, then lay the fish on the gridiron.

  3. Cover the fish with another pan.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until the pork is well shriveled.

  2. Remove the upper pan to allow the fish to brown.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours, maintaining a steady fire.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in steam under the covering pan.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and butter to form a soft, cohesive stuffing.
Raw egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together during baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat that bastes the fish and crisps as it shrivels.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Removing the upper pan to brown the fish. Covering the fish traps steam so it cooks gently. Removing the cover late lets dry heat reach the surface, which browns it. Leaving the cover on too long leaves the fish pale and soft.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, butter, pepper, egg, onion, 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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