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Baked Fish

A bass baked with sea salt, cracker crumbs, butter, and wrapped in cheese cloth, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Fish

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Salt the bass and roll it in cracker crumbs and butter.

  3. Place the fish in a baking pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Take a piece of white cheese cloth, as long as the fish is wide, and roll it up halfway.

  2. Place the rolled cloth on one side of the fish.

  3. Bake until browned on one side, then unroll the cloth and turn the fish over.

  4. Tuck the edges of the cloth neatly around the fish.

  5. When done, lift off the cloth and transfer the fish to a platter.

  6. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cheese + parsleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,507 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Bass
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through with its own moisture held in by the coating.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns in the oven around the fish.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and richness on the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Turning the fish with the cloth. The cloth is used to shield one side while the fish browns, then is unrolled and removed when turning. Lifting it carelessly can tear the crumb crust off the fish, so handle the cloth gently and keep the coating intact.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese. 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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