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Baked Whitings a LA Franqaise

Baked Whitings à la Française is a baked fish dish with clarified butter, mushrooms, parsley, eschalots, wine, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Baked Whitings a LA Franqaise

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble

  1. In a deep dish, pour in the clarified butter and sprinkle with minced mushrooms, parsley, and chopped eschalots or green onions.

  2. Place the cleaned whitings on top and season with salt and white pepper or cayenne.

  3. Sprinkle more herbs over the fish and pour in the white wine.

  4. Cover the fish with a thick layer of bread crumbs and drizzle with more clarified butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Serve with a cut lemon.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Whitings
Form the main body of the dish, cooking gently in the butter and wine.
Clarified butter
Carries heat evenly and adds rich flavour and golden browning to the crumbs.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that holds in moisture under the oven heat.
Minced mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and moisture to the dish beneath the fish.
White wine
Adds acidity and moisture that steams the fish and carries flavour into the dish.

The step that matters

Covering the fish with a thick layer of bread crumbs. Crumbs that are too thin or unevenly spread can dry out or brown unevenly, while a thick, even layer soaked with butter forms a protective crust that keeps the fish moist as it bakes.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, butter, mushroom, parsley, onion, white wine, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, butter, mushroom, parsley, onion, white wine, bread. 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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