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To Dress the Sea Bream

A whole sea bream seasoned, broiled or baked, served with melted butter and anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Dress the Sea Bream

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Open and clean the sea bream, keeping the scales on.

  2. Pat it dry with a cloth to absorb moisture.

Cook

  1. Broil it slowly over gentle heat for about 30 minutes, turning it halfway through.

  2. If cracks appear, sprinkle a little flour on them.

  3. Season the inside with salt and pepper.

  4. Dust the outside with salt.

  5. Place bits of butter on top.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter and anchovy sauce.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sea bream
Its firm flesh and skin hold together through roasting, giving a moist, flaky result.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown as it cooks.

The step that matters

Broil slowly over gentle heat. Gentle heat cooks the thick flesh through before the skin burns, and turning it halfway promotes even cooking. Too much heat dries the fish and cracks the skin.

“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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