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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with butter, onion, lemon, mushrooms, herbs, and a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Make an 'S' shape on the sides of the cleaned fish.

  3. Rub the fish inside and out with pepper and salt.

  4. Butter a stewpan. Add the chopped onion and water to the pan.

  5. Place the fish in the pan. Add lumps of butter on top of the fish.

Bake and baste

  1. Bake the fish for 20 minutes.

  2. Baste the fish frequently while baking.

  3. Carefully lift the fish out of the pan. Place the fish on a serving dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In the same pan, add oyster water, lemon juice, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, marjoram, allspice, garlic, cayenne, and additional salt and pepper.

  2. Mix the mixture thoroughly over the stove. Add butter if the gravy sticks.

  3. Pour the gravy over the fish.

  4. Garnish with whole mushrooms and lemon slices on croutons or dried toast.

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 + parsleytop 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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

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, cooked gently in the pan until flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps keep the fish from drying out while baking.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the liquid around the fish.
Oyster water
Supplies salty, briny flavour to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Adding butter to the gravy. If the gravy sticks or scorches, its flavour turns bitter and burnt. Adding a little butter and stirring thoroughly over the stove keeps the sauce smooth and evenly heated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, butter, oyster, lemon, mushroom, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, butter, oyster, lemon, mushroom, parsley. 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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