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Baked, Stuffed Whitefish

Baked stuffed whitefish with bread crumb and suet filling, served with parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked, Stuffed Whitefish

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the fish, removing the scales and fins.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing the bread crumbs, suet, salt, lemon rind, and eggs together.

  3. Stuff the mixture inside the fish and press the edges together.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a greased baking tin, cover with greased paper, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with parsley sauce.

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

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Whitefish + lemontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Whitefish + breadtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Whitefish
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks into flaky, moist flesh.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind with the eggs to form a stuffing that holds its shape.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together and set during baking to give it structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pressing the fish edges together after stuffing. If the edges are not sealed well, the stuffing can leak out during baking and the filling may dry out or fall apart. Firm closure keeps the forcemeat inside while the fish cooks through.

“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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