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Halibut Steaks

Breaded halibut steaks fried and served with butter, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and coat

  1. Wash and wipe the halibut steaks.

  2. Dip the steaks in the beaten egg.

  3. Roll the steaks in seasoned cracker crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in hot dripping until golden brown, or broil on a grill.

  2. Serve on a hot dish, rubbing both sides with a mixture of butter, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a moist, flaky interior.
Beaten egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the fish so the coating stays attached while cooking.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying or broiling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor over the cooked fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich fish and butter.

The step that matters

Frying in hot dripping until golden brown. The coating must be set and browned on the outside before the fish overcooks. Hot fat sears the crumbs quickly, forming a crisp crust, while too low a heat lets the coating soak up grease and fall away from the fish.

“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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