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Baked Barbel

Baked Barbel is a fish dish cooked by boiling in vinegar and fennel, then baking with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Baked Barbel

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.

Poach the fish

  1. Fill a fish kettle with enough water to cover the fish and add vinegar and fennel.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then add the thoroughly cleaned Barbel fish.

  3. Boil the fish slowly until cooked.

  4. Drain the fish for one hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a pie dish.

  2. Add plenty of butter and minced parsley.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for one hour.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Fennel + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Fish + fenneltop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Barbel fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently until flaky and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out during baking.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the flavour of the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the fish slowly until cooked. Fish proteins set at fairly low heat, so a gentle simmer keeps the flesh moist and tender. A hard, rapid boil tightens and toughens the flesh and can break the fish apart.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, butter, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, butter, parsley. 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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