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Creamed Perch-pike with Bacon Larding

A baked perch-pike larded with bacon, coated in a butter, sour cream, onion, and lemon mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Perch-pike with Bacon Larding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fish

  1. Mix the butter, sour cream, chopped onion, and lemon juice in a bowl.

  2. Smear the mixture over the cleaned, bacon-larded perch-pike.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a fire-proof dish and bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until half-done.

  2. Add more sour cream and continue baking until well done.

  3. Serve in the fire-proof dish with buttered potatoes and lemon slices.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Cream + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Cream and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Sour cream
Forms a rich, creamy coating that keeps the fish moist as it bakes.
Bacon
Larding melts fat through the fish, adding moisture and savory flavor while it cooks.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and flavor to the creamy coating as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the coating and helps it brown gently in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding more sour cream before finishing the bake. Sour cream can curdle or separate when exposed to high heat for long periods. Adding it partway through and baking only until the fish is well done helps keep the coating smooth and the fish moist.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, onion):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, onion. 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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