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Baked Pickerel with Oyster Sauce

A baked pickerel served with a creamy oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Pickerel with Oyster Sauce

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 the fish

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

  2. Place the fish on a buttered pan and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Spread soft butter over the fish and dredge with flour.

Bake the fish

  1. Bake for 40 minutes, basting with a mixture of butter and water when the flour begins to brown.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. For the oyster sauce, parboil the oysters and drain the liquor.

  2. Add enough milk to the oyster liquor to make 1 cup.

  3. In a saucepan, cook the butter and corn starch until well mixed.

  4. Stir in the milk mixture and cook until smooth.

  5. Add the cream and oysters, season, and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pickerel
The main fish, whose flesh is cooked gently in the oven.
Flour
Forms a browning crust on the fish's surface during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying heat to the fish and browning the crust.
Oysters
Provide the briny, savoury flavour of the sauce.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk and oyster liquor into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Basting the fish when the flour begins to brown. Flour browns quickly in the oven and can scorch if left alone. Basting with butter and water keeps the surface moist and golden while the fish cooks through.

“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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