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Broiled Halibut

Broiled halibut steak served with butter, sea salt, pepper, mashed potatoes, and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the broiler and grease the broiler pan.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the halibut steak on the broiler pan, positioning it far enough from the heat to cook through.

  2. Broil until browned and cooked through.

  3. Transfer to a hot platter or wooden plank.

  4. Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  5. Garnish with browned mashed potatoes and slices of lemon.

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

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut steak
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to a firm, flaky texture under the heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish as it is seasoned.

The step that matters

Positioning the halibut away from the heat. Placing the steak too close to the broiler can scorch the outside before the thick center cooks through. Keeping it farther from the heat lets the interior cook evenly while the surface browns.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, lemon. 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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