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Hake, Baked

Baked hake fillets seasoned with parsley, onion, butter, and flour, cooked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hake, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the fish, then place the slices side by side in a greased baking dish.

  2. Dredge the fish with flour and season liberally with salt and pepper.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle the onion and parsley on top, then add small pieces of butter or fat.

  2. Bake gently at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes, basting occasionally.

Serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a hot dish, strain the cooking liquid over it, and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hake
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a flaky, tender texture.
Flour
Dusting on the fish helps form a light coating that browns and thickens the cooking liquid.
Butter or good fat
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour and keeping the fish from drying out.

The step that matters

Bake gently at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes, basting occasionally. Gentle heat cooks the delicate fish through without toughening its proteins. Basting returns moisture to the surface, helping the flesh stay juicy while it cooks.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, butter, pepper, flour. 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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