Name: Baked Fish
Ingredients: 1 whole fish (trout, carp, bream, jack, salmon, or similar); ½ cup cream, oil, or white wine; ½ cup vinegar; ½ cup water; Salt and pepper to taste; Olive oil, white wine, or lemon juice for basting

Why it works: Vinegar and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

1 whole fish (trout, carp, bream, jack, salmon, or similar)
½ cup cream, oil, or white wine
½ cup vinegar
½ cup water
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil, white wine, or lemon juice for basting

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Season the fish with salt and pepper.
Place the fish in a deep baking dish.

Bake and serve

Pour cream, oil, or white wine over the fish.
For a cold dish, mix vinegar and water and pour over the fish.
Baste the fish with olive oil, white wine, or lemon juice.
Bake until cooked through, then serve with the cooking liquid and a cold sauce on the side.

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.

Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Fish + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,948 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish: Forms the main body of the dish and cooks through in the oven.
Cream, oil, or white wine: Keeps the fish moist and carries flavour during baking.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives a sharp, tangy note to the cold dish.
Olive oil, white wine, or lemon juice: Basting adds moisture and a bright flavour to the surface of the fish.

“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.