Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Fish

Broiled Fish is a whole fish seasoned with salt, pepper, sweet oil or butter, parsley, and lemon, then broiled and garnished.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Broiled Fish

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the broiler to moderate heat (350°F / 175°C).

  2. Rub the fish with salt and pepper mixed with sweet oil or butter.

  3. Place the fish on the double broiler, flesh side down.

Broil and check

  1. Broil until the flesh is browned, then turn to broil the skin side.

  2. Ensure the skin does not burn while cooking the inside thoroughly.

  3. Check if the fish is done by ensuring the flesh parts easily from the bone.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the fish from the broiler using a knife to loosen the fins.

  2. Transfer the fish to a hot dish and butter it well.

  3. Season with additional salt and pepper if desired.

  4. Pour chopped parsley and lemon juice over the fish.

  5. Garnish with sliced lemon and parsley or delicate green lettuce leaves.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, opaque flesh that separates from the bone.
Sweet oil or butter
Adds fat that carries seasoning and helps the surface brown and stay moist under the broiler.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich fish and oil.

The step that matters

Watching the skin under the broiler. Direct high heat can scorch the skin before the thickest part of the fish is cooked through, so the fish should be checked often and turned when the flesh browns.

“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.

More broiled fish recipes

Sauce 5 See all 100 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipes