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Broiled Shad, with Sorrel

A whole shad seasoned, broiled, and served with melted butter, parsley, and fresh sorrel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 234 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiled Shad, with Sorrel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale and draw the shad, then cut its fins and wipe it clean.

  2. Season the roe and place it back into the hollow of the fish.

  3. Notch both sides of the fish and season it again.

  4. Pour a little olive oil over the fish and let it marinate for 1 hour.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the fish over a slow fire, turning it and basting with the marinade oil using tied parsley sprigs.

  2. Once cooked, dish the shad and pour melted butter mixed with chopped parsley over it.

  3. Serve with a separate garnish of fresh sorrel.

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 + sorreltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Olive + sorreltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Olive + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
Forms the main body of the dish, and its flesh cooks to a flaky texture under heat.
Olive oil
Carries seasoning over the fish and helps keep the surface moist while it broils.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the finished fish a smooth, savoury coating.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the butter sauce poured over the cooked fish.

The step that matters

Broil over a slow fire, turning and basting. Turning and basting keep the surface from drying or scorching before the thick flesh cooks through. A slow fire lets heat reach the centre gently, so the fish stays moist and flakes evenly.

Swap the sorrel

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Sorrelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, butter, parsley. 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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