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Ling, Baked

Baked ling fish with flour, butter, cream, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Ling, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean and empty the fish, then cut it into thick slices, removing the head and tail.

  2. Dredge the slices with flour and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  3. Lay the slices in a baking dish and pour melted butter over them.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Place the fish slices on a hot dish.

  3. In the same dish, heat the cream and mushrooms with the remaining butter, then pour over the fish before serving.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ling fish
Forms the main body of the dish; cut into thick slices so it cooks through in the oven.
Flour
Coats the fish slices, helping them brown lightly and giving the surface some structure.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture so the fish stays tender and does not dry out in the oven.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, thickening it gently as it heats.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and savoury body to the cream sauce.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes. Fish cooks quickly and becomes dry and firm when overcooked. Timing the bake to the slice thickness keeps the flesh moist and flaky.

“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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