Skip to main content
Main

Baked Halibut Oe Salmon

Baked fish topped with a tomato-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Halibut Oe Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Soak the fish in cold water with a little coarse sea salt for 1 hour.

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

  3. Place a gridiron over a dripping pan with a little hot water.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake the fish on the gridiron until done; about 30 minutes for small fish and 1 hour for large fish.

  2. Butter the top of the fish just before it is done and brown it nicely.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine the dripping pan gravy with catsup, pungent sauce, and lemon juice.

  2. Thicken the sauce with brown flour moistened with a little cold water.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 or salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by baking on the gridiron.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top of the fish brown nicely in the oven.
Brown flour
Thickens the pan gravy into a sauce when moistened with cold water first.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with flour moistened in cold water. Flour added dry to hot liquid clumps, because its starch granules coat each other before they can disperse. Mixing it smooth with cold water first lets the starch spread evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, sauce, flour):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, sauce, flour. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipes