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Broiled Whitings

A simple fish dish where whitings are cleaned, seasoned, grilled, and finished with oiled butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and butter work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Broiled Whitings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the whitings in salt and water, then dry them well.

  2. Split each fish open along the backbone and cut off the heads.

  3. Brush the fish with salad oil and sprinkle with pepper and salt.

Broil and serve

  1. Oil the bars of the grill and place the fish on it.

  2. Broil for five minutes, turning once.

  3. If the fish are thick, they may need a few extra minutes.

  4. Remove from the grill and place on a hot dish.

  5. Pour about 1 tablespoon of oiled butter over each fish and serve hot.

  6. Garnish with fresh parsley.

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. Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Whiting + peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together374 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

Whitings
The main fish, whose flesh cooks through and turns flaky under the grill heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the hot fish as it is served.
Oil
Coats the fish to prevent sticking to the grill and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Broil for five minutes, turning once. Fish is thin and cooks quickly, so overcooking dries it out. Turning once ensures both sides cook evenly without tearing the delicate flesh.

“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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