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To Broil Fish

A whole fish is cleaned, seasoned with salt, grilled with butter, then finished with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Broil Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the fish.

  2. Split the fish so the backbone is in the middle when laid flat.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with coarse sea salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the fish, inside down, on a buttered grill over a clear fire until nicely colored.

  2. Turn the fish and cook until done.

  3. Transfer to a hot dish, butter generously, and season with black pepper.

  4. Cover with a hot lid and serve.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish brown lightly on the grill.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the flesh and draws out some surface moisture for a firmer exterior.

The step that matters

Turn the fish and cook until done. Flipping too early tears the skin and flesh that has not set yet. Cook until the thickest part is opaque and flakes easily, since overcooking dries the fish.

“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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