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Red Snapper

Baked red snapper topped with a bacon and cracker crumb dressing, seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, parsley, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Red Snapper

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the snapper in a roasting pan with several slices of bacon underneath.

  3. Season the fish inside and out with salt and pepper.

  4. In a bowl, mix cracker crumbs, eggs, sage, and parsley to make the dressing.

  5. Stuff the dressing into the fish.

Bake and serve

  1. Ensure there is about 1 inch of liquid in the roasting pan while baking.

  2. Bake for 1½ hours, adding the juice of 1 lemon during the last 15 minutes.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the cracker crumb dressing so it holds together inside the fish.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the pan and onto the fish.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and bacon flavors.
Cracker crumbs
Form the bulk of the dressing and absorb moisture from the fish.

The step that matters

Keep liquid in the roasting pan during baking. About an inch of liquid keeps the pan from drying out and helps the fish cook gently and stay moist during the long bake.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, lemon, 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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