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Broiled Fish

Broiled fish seasoned with oil or salt pork, salt, pepper, flour, lemon butter, served with potatoes, parsley, lemon wedges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Broiled Fish

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 ↓

Broiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Place the fish on a dripping pan, skin side down, with the backbone, head, tail, and fins removed.

  3. Brush the fish with oil or rub with salt pork.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and lightly dust with flour.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix hot water with lemon juice and butter.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the fish in the broiling oven, close the door, and baste once or twice with the lemon butter mixture.

  2. Broil for 15 to 25 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.

  3. Serve garnished with potatoes, parsley, and lemon wedges.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to flaky, tender flesh under the heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown as it bastes the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the fish and the basting liquid.
Flour
A light dusting helps the surface brown and gives a slightly crisp finish.

The step that matters

Basting with the lemon butter mixture. Basting once or twice during broiling keeps the surface moist so it does not dry out before the fish is cooked through. Timing depends on fish thickness, so check for doneness.

“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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