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Baked Whitings a LA Franchise

Baked fish served with wine, breadcrumbs, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Baked Whitings a LA Franchise

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).

Assemble

  1. In a deep dish, pour clarified butter and sprinkle with minced mushrooms, parsley, and chopped eschalots or green onions.

  2. Place the prepared whitings on top and season with salt and white pepper or cayenne.

  3. Sprinkle more herbs on the fish and pour in the white wine.

  4. Cover the fish with a thick layer of bread crumbs and drizzle with more clarified butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Serve with a cut lemon.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whitings
The fish is the main component, cooked gently in the butter and wine until flaky.
Clarified butter
Carries heat evenly and adds richness and browning to the fish and crumb topping.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and savory flavor as they cook in the butter beneath the fish.
White wine
Adds moisture and acidity, steaming the fish and keeping it from drying out.
Bread crumbs
Form a golden crust on top that helps hold in moisture underneath.

The step that matters

Cover the fish with a thick layer of bread crumbs. Crumbs coated in clarified butter brown and crisp in the oven, while the layer above the fish helps trap moisture. Too thin a layer may burn or leave the top dry.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, butter, mushroom, parsley, onion, white wine, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, butter, mushroom, parsley, onion, white wine, bread. 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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