Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Baked Shad
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Clean the shad thoroughly.
Prepare a stuffing with grated bread, milk, butter, pepper, salt, and the beaten egg.
Fill the shad with the stuffing and sew it up carefully.
Bake
Place the shad in a baking pan with a little water.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour, basting often with butter and water.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shad
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole with its stuffing inside.
- Grated bread
- Absorbs liquid and forms the bulk of the stuffing, keeping it moist and tender.
- Milk
- Moistens the bread so the stuffing stays soft rather than dry.
- Beaten egg
- Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and browning, especially when spooned over during basting.
The step that matters
Basting the shad while it bakes. Regular basting with butter and water adds moisture and fat to the surface, helping the fish stay juicy and brown rather than drying out over the hour-long bake.
“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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