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Baked Tuna Fish

A baked tuna dish with bread crumbs, lemon, butter, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Baked Tuna Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, lemon juice, melted butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Chop the tuna fish finely and mix it with the egg yolks and seasoning.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking tin.

  2. Bake for 35 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Egg whites
Whipped air gives the mixture lightness and helps it rise in the oven.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and add richness and a set structure when baked.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture body so it holds together.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a softer texture and rich flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in the mixture; stirring or beating after adding them deflates the foam, leaving a denser, flatter bake.

“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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