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Baked Halibut or Salmon

A whole halibut or salmon baked with a savory sauce and garnished with parsley and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Halibut or 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 ½ cup of 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 finish

  1. Bake the fish for 30 minutes if small, or 1 hour if large.

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

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the gravy from the dripping pan with 1 tablespoon of ketchup, 1 tablespoon of pungent sauce, and the juice of 1 lemon.

  2. Thicken the sauce with 2 tablespoons of brown flour mixed with a little water.

  3. Serve the fish garnished with parsley and currant jelly.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 by gentle baking until flaky.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the surface of the fish near the end of baking.
Brown flour
Thickens the pan gravy into a sauce as it is mixed with water.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Butter the top of the fish just before it is done. Butter browns through the Maillard reaction at high heat, so adding it too early can burn or dry the surface, while adding it too late leaves the fish pale.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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