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To Bake Turbot, Holibut, Salmon, or White and Freshwater Fish

A baked fish dish seasoned with herbs, spices, salt, vinegar or stock, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,493 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

To Bake Turbot, Holibut, Salmon, or White and Freshwater Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cover an earthen pan with sweet herbs, spices, coarse sea salt, and vinegar or stock.

  2. Gut the fish at the gill and wash it well.

  3. Stuff the fish with a cooked filling or return the roe to prevent overcooking.

  4. Cut the fish down the back into the bone and tie up the head.

Bake

  1. Place the fish in the pan and pack any small fish around it.

  2. Smooth the top and cover completely with butter.

  3. Bake in a simmering oven until the fish yields to the touch.

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. Vinegar + winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

  3. Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Turbot + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 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

Butter
Coats the fish, adding richness and moisture while it bakes.
Vinegar or stock
Provides moisture and a gentle acidity in the pan, keeping the fish from drying out.
Sweet herbs
Add aroma that flavours the fish and the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stuff the fish with a cooked filling or return the roe to prevent overcooking. Fish cooks quickly and dries out easily. Stuffing or returning the roe fills the cavity and helps the flesh cook more evenly, reducing the risk of overcooking the thinner parts.

“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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