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Broiled Whitings

Broiled whiting seasoned with pepper, sea salt, oil, and lemon juice, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Broiled Whitings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the whitings with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour a little oil over them and let them marinate for 1-2 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the whitings before the fire, turning them frequently.

  2. Squeeze a little lemon juice over them before serving.

  3. Serve with any sauce you like.

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 + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Whiting + lemontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + saucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Whitings
Fish is the main component, cooked by direct heat to become opaque and flaky.
Oil
Coats the fish during marinating and helps it brown and stay moist under the broiler.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich, cooked fish.

The step that matters

Turning the whitings frequently under the broiler. Broiling is intense direct heat, so the surface can scorch before the thin fish cooks through. Frequent turning promotes even cooking and keeps the flesh moist while the outside browns.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, pepper, sauce):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Grapefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, pepper, sauce. 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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