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Broiled Fish Cutlets

Broiled fish cutlets marinated in oil, shallot, parsley, vinegar, garlic, peppercorns, lime peel, then broiled and served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Broiled Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the sea fish into cutlets.

  2. Parboil the cutlets in the morning.

Marinate

  1. Marinate the cutlets all day in salad oil, minced shallot, parsley, vinegar, garlic, peppercorns, and lime peel.

  2. Wrap the marinated cutlets in oiled paper.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil over a fast, clear fire.

  2. Serve with a sharp brown sauce.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Seer fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender cutlets.
Salad oil
Carries the flavours of the marinade and keeps the fish moist during broiling.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that brightens the fish and slightly firms its surface.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sharp aromatic flavour that mellows during marinating.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that penetrates the fish during the long marinade.

The step that matters

Broil over a fast, clear fire. Fish is delicate and dries out quickly. A hot, fast fire cooks the cutlets briefly, setting the flesh and browning the surface before the interior overcooks. The oiled paper wrapping helps protect the fish from drying out.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, shallot, parsley, vinegar, garlic, lime, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, shallot, parsley, vinegar, garlic, lime, 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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