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Halibut Steak K LA Percival

Halibut steak with lemon, pepper, sea salt, butter, oyster liquor, topped with oysters, baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Halibut Steak K LA Percival

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the halibut steaks in salted water and dry them well.

  2. Dust the steaks with flour and place them in an earthenware dish.

  3. Sprinkle the steaks with lemon juice, pepper, coarse sea salt, and Nepaul pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. In a saucepan, dissolve the butter and mix in the liquor from the oysters.

  2. Pour the butter mixture over the steaks and place the dish in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Bake for about 30 minutes until ready.

  4. Five minutes before serving, place the oysters on top of the steaks.

  5. Serve the steaks in the cooking dish, optionally garnished with an ornamental paper.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut steaks
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through to a flaky, tender texture.
Flour
Dusted on the steaks, it helps the surface brown and gives the sauce some body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour and keeping the fish from drying out.
Oysters
Added near the end so they warm through and release their briny flavour over the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters five minutes before serving. Oysters cook quickly and turn rubbery if overheated, so they should only warm through at the end of baking.

“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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