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Stuffed Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with a breadcrumb and herb dressing, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Baked Fish

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. Clean the fish and wipe it dry.

  2. Rub coarse sea salt inside the fish and season the outside with black pepper and flour.

Make and stuff

  1. In a bowl, combine stale bread crumbs, black pepper, coarse sea salt, beaten egg, sage, and onion to make the dressing.

  2. Stuff the fish with the dressing.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the fish at 350°F (175°C) for about 2 hours.

  2. Serve with sauce.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the bread crumb dressing so it holds together inside the fish.
Stale bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the dressing and absorb moisture from the fish and onion.
Onion
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the stuffing as it softens during baking.
Flour
Dusts the outside of the fish, helping the skin brown and dry slightly.

The step that matters

Stuffing the fish with the dressing. Packing the dressing loosely lets it expand and cook through evenly, while the egg sets it. Overpacking can burst the skin and leave the center soft.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, flour, bread, egg, sage):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, flour, bread, egg, sage. 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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