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Baked Halibut a LA Creole

Baked halibut topped with stewed tomatoes, breadcrumbs, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Baked Halibut a LA Creole

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. Remove all bones from the halibut steak.

  2. Place the steak in a baking dish and sprinkle with garlic.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover with a layer of stewed tomatoes, then a layer of bread crumbs, bits of butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add another layer of stewed tomatoes on top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  4. Serve in the same dish it was baked in.

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. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut steak
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks through in the oven.
Stewed tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that keep the fish from drying out while baking.
Dried bread crumbs
Absorb juices and form a layer that helps the top brown lightly.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the crumbs brown and the fish taste rounder.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and flaky-tough if overbaked. The tomato layers and butter help retain moisture, but timing must be watched so the flesh just turns opaque and separates easily.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, garlic, butter, pepper, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, garlic, butter, pepper, 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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