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Whiting Au Gratin

A baked whiting topped with mushrooms, shallot, parsley, lemon zest, bread crumbs, and brown stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Whiting Au Gratin

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 the whiting, remove the fins and head, and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Remove the bone from the whiting, starting at the head end.

  3. Butter an oven-safe dish and chop the parsley, mushrooms, and shallot.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add grated lemon zest, pepper, and salt to the chopped mixture and mix well.

  2. Spread half of the mixture in the buttered dish, place the whiting on top, and sprinkle the remaining mixture over it.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over the fish and sprinkle browned bread-crumbs on top.

  4. Dot with butter and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully transfer to a clean dish, pour brown stock around it, and serve.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 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

Whiting
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes flaky and tender when baked.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury flavour to the stuffing beneath and above the fish.
Brown bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping during baking.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich fish and stock.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the topping brown.
Brown stock
Adds savoury depth to the dish when poured around the fish.

The step that matters

Bake the whiting without overcooking it. Whiting is a lean, delicate fish that turns dry and firm when overheated. Baking it only until the flesh turns opaque and flakes easily keeps it moist, while the bread-crumb topping still browns.

“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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