Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Baked Fish
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
Prepare a rich stuffing using bread crumbs.
Fill the fish with the stuffing and tie or sew it firmly.
Bake
Lay thin slices of bacon over the fish.
Place the fish in a pan with a little water and baste frequently.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for two hours.
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.
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Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,668 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White fish or salmon
- Forms the main body of the dish and cooks to a flaky texture.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb juices from the fish, giving the stuffing a moist, tender body.
- Bacon
- Melts fat over the fish, adding moisture and savory flavor as it bakes.
The step that matters
Basting the fish in the pan. Basting spoons the liquid and rendered fat back over the surface, keeping the fish moist while it bakes over a long period at high heat.
“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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