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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with bread crumb stuffing and salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and pepper work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Stuff and season

  1. Make a stuffing by mixing bread crumbs with summer savory or thyme.

  2. Stuff the fish with the bread crumb mixture.

  3. Lard the fish with strips of raw salt pork for seasoning.

  4. Season with pepper.

Bake

  1. Bake the fish in the oven according to its size.

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. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Summer savory + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Blue fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole with its head on.
Bread crumbs
Make a moist stuffing that fills the cavity and absorbs juices during baking.
Salt pork
Renders fat as it bakes, moistening the fish and adding savory flavor.

The step that matters

Bake the fish according to its size. The record gives no set time, so size alone guides doneness. Thick fish cooks through more slowly than thin fish, and the flesh is done when it turns opaque and flakes easily at the thickest point.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, pork, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pork, pepper. 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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