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Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with pork strips and a cracker crumb mixture, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Stuff and sew the fish, then cut gashes two inches apart on each side.

  2. Rub the fish all over with soft butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Insert strips of fat salt pork into the gashes and dredge the fish with flour.

  4. Place any remaining pork strips around the pan.

Make the stuffing and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, onion, parsley, capers, pickles, and melted butter.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the fish.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until cooked through.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 become moist and flaky.
Fat salt pork
Melts during baking, basting the fish and adding fat and savory flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish surface and the stuffing.
Cracker crumbs
Bind with butter to form a absorbent stuffing that holds moisture and adds body.
Flour
Dries the fish surface and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Stuff the mixture into the fish. Packing the stuffing too tightly can keep the centre from cooking evenly and can split the skin, while loose filling may fall out during baking. Fill snugly and check that the thickest part reaches doneness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, pepper, pork, flour, parsley, capers):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, pepper, pork, flour, parsley, capers. 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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