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Baked Red Snapper

Baked red snapper with tomato and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked 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.

Make the sauce

  1. Brown the chopped onion in butter in a skillet.

  2. Add the tomatoes and season with salt and cayenne pepper.

Bake the fish

  1. Wash the fish and place it in a baking pan with the sauce.

  2. Baste the fish often while baking.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours for a large fish at 350°F (175°C).

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Tomato + snappertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Red snapper
The main protein, which cooks through in the oven and flakes when done.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that form the sauce the fish bakes in.
Onion
Browned in butter to add sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Butter
Fat that carries the onion's flavor and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Baste the fish often while baking. Regular spooning of the sauce over the fish adds moisture to the surface, helping prevent the flesh from drying out during the long bake.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, pepper, snapper. 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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