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Baked Whitings, with Fine-Herbs

Baked whiting seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil or butter, and fine herbs, cooked until flaky.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked Whitings, with Fine-Herbs

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Clean the whitings and place them in a baking dish.

Season and bake

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Drizzle with olive oil or dot with butter.

  3. Sprinkle fine herbs over the fish.

  4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until cooked through and flaky.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Whitings
The fish is the main component, cooking through to a flaky texture in the oven.
Olive oil or butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps keep the fish moist while baking.
Fine herbs
Add fresh aroma and flavour to the fish as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking until cooked through. Whiting is a lean, delicate fish that dries out quickly in heat. Baking only until it turns opaque and flakes at the thickest point keeps it moist, while overbaking makes it tough and dry.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, parsley, thyme, pepper, olive):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, parsley, thyme, pepper, olive. 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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