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Halibut Baked with Onion

Halibut baked with onion, butter, egg yolk, parsley, pepper, sea salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Halibut Baked with Onion

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Butter the bottom of a baking pan and sprinkle with finely chopped onion.

  3. Place the halibut steak on top of the onion.

Bake

  1. Brush the halibut with the egg yolk and sprinkle with chopped onion, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Pour lemon juice over the halibut and dot with small bits of butter.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices before serving.

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

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Halibut steak
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently to flaky tenderness in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the fish stay tender as it bakes.
Onion
Releases moisture and aroma as it cooks, flavoring the fish from below and above.
Egg yolk
Brushed on as a binder that helps the seasonings and onion adhere to the fish and adds richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavor of the halibut.

The step that matters

Baking the halibut for the full time. Fish is cooked when it turns opaque and flakes easily; removing it too early leaves it translucent, while overbaking dries it out and makes it tough.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, parsley, pepper, lemon. 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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