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Baked Trout with Shrimp Sauce

A trout baked with lardons, butter, lemon, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Baked Trout with Shrimp Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the trout.

  2. Make six gashes on each side of the fish and insert a lardoon of fat salt pork in each gash.

  3. Brush the fish inside and out with melted butter mixed with lemon juice.

Bake

  1. Place a rack in a baking pan and lay the fish on it.

  2. Pour boiling water into the bottom of the pan and bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

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

  4. Salmon + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + porktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon trout
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven's dry heat.
Fat salt pork
Lardons melt during baking, adding fat and savory flavor to the flesh.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and the flesh stay moist.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery coating and balances the richness of the fish.

The step that matters

Pour boiling water into the bottom of the pan. Water in the pan creates steam around the fish, which helps it cook gently and stay moist in a very hot oven. Without it, the thin flesh can dry out before the center is cooked.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pork, butter. 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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