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Baked Halibut

Baked halibut topped with a tomato and almond sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and dry the halibut steak, then season with coarse sea salt.

Bake the fish

  1. Bake the halibut for 35 minutes, basting often with the sauce.

Make the sauce

  1. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour.

  2. Add the tomatoes, water, minced onion, green pepper, chopped almonds, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook the sauce until thickened, then pour it around the baked fish.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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

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

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Firm, flaky protein that sets and turns opaque as it cooks, giving the dish its body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flour to form the sauce base.
Flour
Starch that swells with heat and thickens the butter and liquid into a sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide liquid, acidity and savory flavor to the sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic, savory depth as it softens into the sauce.
Almonds
Add a nutty flavor and a slight texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened. Flour thickens only when heated enough for its starch to swell. If the sauce is stopped early, it stays thin and can taste of raw flour. Cooking it fully gives a smooth, cohesive sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, onion, pepper, almond, sugar, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, pepper, almond, sugar, parsley. 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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