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Baked Halibut

Baked halibut topped with salt pork, baked with milk, served with shredded potato garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Baked Halibut

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the halibut and place it on a buttered fish sheet in a dripping pan.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Arrange strips of fat salt pork on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Add 1 cup of milk and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 35 minutes.

  2. Baste every 10 minutes, removing the pork during the last 10 minutes.

  3. Transfer to a serving dish, remove the outer skin, and garnish with shredded potatoes.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the fish from sticking to the sheet.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat over the fish, adding savory flavor and moisture as it bakes.
Milk
Poured into the pan, it creates moist, gentle heat around the fish and adds a mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Baste every 10 minutes. Regular basting spoons the liquid and rendered fat over the fish, keeping its surface moist so it does not dry out during the 35-minute 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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