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Baked Bass

Baked Bass is a fish stuffed with a cracker and spice mixture, baked in its own dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Bass

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a filling with pounded crackers or bread crumbs, pepper, clove, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  2. Fill the bass very full and sew it up.

Season and bake

  1. Grate a small amount of nutmeg over the top and sprinkle with pounded crackers.

  2. Pour the egg white and a little melted butter on top.

  3. Bake for 1 hour in the same dish it will be served in.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pounded crackers or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add bulk to the filling, giving it a soft, stuffing-like texture.
Egg white
Sets when baked, helping bind the topping and form a light crust over the fish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the filling and fish moist while it bakes.

The step that matters

Fill the bass very full and sew it up. Packing the cavity fully leaves little air space, so the filling holds its shape and the fish cooks evenly. Loose stitching can let the filling escape and dry out during the hour in the oven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, nutmeg, egg. 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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