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Baked Whitings a LA Fbanqaise

Baked fish fillets topped with mushrooms, herbs, and breadcrumbs, baked with wine and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Whitings a LA Fbanqaise

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. In a deep dish, pour in the clarified butter and sprinkle with minced mushrooms, parsley, and shallots or green onions.

  3. Place the cleaned whitings on top and season with salt and white pepper or cayenne.

  4. Sprinkle more herbs over the fish and pour in the white wine.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked through.

  3. Serve with lemon wedges.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole whitings
The fish is the main protein that cooks through in the dish.
Clarified butter
Carries heat and adds richness, helping the fish cook gently without drying.
Mushrooms
Release moisture into the dish and add savory, earthy flavor.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.
White wine
Adds moisture and acidity that steams the fish and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and becomes dry and rubbery if overbaked. Checking for flakiness at the early end of the range keeps the flesh moist.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, butter, mushroom, parsley, shallot, 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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