Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Baked Fish
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make a stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, salt, pepper, butter, and enough cold water to moisten.
Stuff the fish with the mixture and sew up the opening.
Bake
Place the fish in a baking pan and cut gashes across the body, about ½ inch deep.
Dredge the fish with salt, pepper, and flour.
Bake for one hour, basting every fifteen minutes.
Renew the water in the pan frequently to keep it covered.
Serve
Serve the fish whole on a platter, garnished with parsley.
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.
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,668 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently inside its stuffing and skin.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture from the butter and water, giving the stuffing a soft, cohesive texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat that enriches the stuffing and keeps it moist as it cooks.
- Flour
- Dries the fish surface so the dredging coating can help browning and form a light crust.
The step that matters
Renew the water in the pan frequently to keep it covered.. Water in the pan creates a gentle, moist heat around the fish, slowing surface drying and scorching. If the water runs low, the fish can dry out and the exposed surface can over-brown before the interior is cooked through.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, pepper, butter, flour):
- Parsleythe original
- Capersfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Marjoramfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pepper, butter, flour. 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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