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Baked Fish

A whole fish is cleaned, dressed, buttered, floured, and baked, then garnished with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Select a firm fish with bright eyes and red gills.

  2. Cut along the underside to expose the cavity.

  3. Remove internal organs and kidneys.

  4. Wash and dry the fish.

  5. If not using immediately, sprinkle with salt. Refrigerate the fish.

Stuff and dress

  1. Remove the eyes and fill the cavity with dressing, leaving room for it to expand.

  2. Sew up the fish with strong thread.

  3. Skewer the fish in an 'S' shape.

  4. Butter the fish.

  5. Dredge the fish with flour.

  6. Place the fish on a rack in a baking pan.

  7. If the fish is dry, cut gashes. Insert strips of salt pork into the gashes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until the fish is brown and the flesh is firm.

  2. Remove the string and skewers.

  3. Garnish the fish with lemon and parsley 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Fish
Provides the main body of the dish, cooking to firm, flaky flesh under dry heat.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the skin, helping it brown evenly in the oven.
Flour
Coats the skin so it browns and forms a light crust that holds moisture in.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the gashes, adding moisture and savory flavor to the flesh.

The step that matters

Bake until the fish is brown and the flesh is firm. Fish turns from translucent to opaque and flaky as proteins set. Overbaking squeezes out moisture and makes the flesh dry and tough, so check for firmness rather than relying on time alone.

“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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