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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked slowly with water, optionally dredged in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,532 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Rinse the fish thoroughly and wipe it dry.

  2. Fold the fish together and place it in a dripping pan with 1 cup of boiling water.

Bake

  1. Cook slowly at 300°F (150°C) for at least 2 hours until tender.

  2. If desired, lightly dredge the fish with flour toward the end of cooking as it begins to brown.

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. Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and flaky as it cooks slowly.
Boiling water
Creates steam in the pan, helping keep the fish moist during slow cooking.
Flour
Dusted on at the end, it helps the surface brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Cook slowly at 300°F (150°C) for at least 2 hours until tender. Low, slow heat lets the connective tissue in the fish break down gently without drying out the flesh. Cooking too hot can toughen the protein and dry the fish before it becomes tender.

“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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