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Baked Fish with Forcemeat

Baked fish stuffed with forcemeat, baked in butter, anchovy, lemon sauce, and topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Fish with Forcemeat

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake

  1. Press the forcemeat into the side of the fish.

  2. Place the fish in a tin baking dish.

  3. Pour ¾ pint of thin melted butter flavored with anchovy and lemon juice around the fish.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 1 hour, basting frequently with the sauce.

Serve

  1. Remove the fish carefully to a hot dish.

  2. Strain the sauce over the fish and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the butter sauce until flaky.
Forcemeat
Stuffs the side of the fish, adding a seasoned, moist filling as it cooks.
Butter
Provides fat and moisture, carrying the anchovy and lemon flavor while basting the fish.
Anchovy
Adds a salty, savory depth to the butter sauce.
Bread crumbs
Sprinkled over the sauced fish to add a light, crisp topping as it browns.

The step that matters

Basting the fish during baking. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist and carries the butter sauce into the fish, so it does not dry out during the hour in the oven.

“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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