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Plaice, Baked

Baked plaice stuffed with breadcrumb mixture and topped with browned breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plaice, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix the white breadcrumbs, suet, parsley, herbs, and nutmeg in a bowl. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Add the egg and enough milk to moisten the mixture thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Stuff the plaice with the mixture and place it in a greased baking dish.

  2. Top with pale browned breadcrumbs and dot with fat or butter.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until cooked through.

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

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Plaice
The main fish, which is stuffed and bakes until cooked through.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape around the fish.
White breadcrumbs
Absorb the milk and give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during baking.
Pale browned breadcrumbs
Form a topping that browns lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Moistening the stuffing with milk. Breadcrumbs need enough liquid to soften and bind with the egg. Too little leaves a dry, crumbly stuffing, while too much makes it loose and likely to fall out of the fish.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, pepper, egg, butter, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, pepper, egg, butter, milk. 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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