Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Shad

Broiled Shad is a whole fish cooked over a grill and finished in butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the shad by splitting it in two or cutting it for frying.

Broil

  1. Place the fish on a grill over a steady fire of coals.

  2. Broil gently, starting with the inside facing the fire to ensure it cooks through.

Serve

  1. In a deep dish, mix the softened butter with salt and pepper.

  2. Once both sides of the fish are done, place it on the dish.

  3. Turn the fish several times in the butter.

  4. Cover the dish with a tin cover and keep it hot until ready to serve.

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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Provides the main protein, cooked over coals until flaky and cooked through.
Sweet butter
Adds moisture and richness, coating the fish so it stays juicy after broiling.

The step that matters

Broil gently, inside facing the fire first. Cooking gently over steady heat lets the thick flesh cook through without the outside drying or burning. Starting with the inside facing the fire helps the thickest part set fully before the skin side takes the most direct heat.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes