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Baked Whitings, with Fine-Herbs

Baked whiting fish topped with a butter and fine herb mixture, served with lemon wedges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Baked Whitings, with Fine-Herbs

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the cleaned whiting on a baking dish.

Season and bake

  1. Melt the butter and mix in the fine herbs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Brush the herb mixture over the fish.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve with lemon wedges.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, opaque tenderness in the oven.
Butter
Carries the herbs over the fish and adds richness and moisture as it bakes.
Fine herbs
Add fresh, aromatic flavour that clings to the fish from the butter brushed over it.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and tough when overbaked, so check for flakiness at the stated time rather than relying on the clock alone.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, fish, butter, parsley, tarragon, pepper, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivethe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Lettucefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, fish, butter, parsley, tarragon, pepper, lemon. 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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