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Fish and Tomato Sauce

A baked bream fillet topped with tomato sauce and seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish and Tomato Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Fillet the bream and cut each fillet into two pieces.

  2. Wash and trim the fillets.

  3. Butter a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the fillets in the dish.

  2. Season the fillets with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour the tomato sauce over the fillets.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for twenty minutes.

Serve

  1. Garnish the dish with chopped parsley.

  2. Serve the fish in the dish it was cooked.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bream
Forms the flaky fish portion that is the main part of the dish.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity, keeping the fish moist while it bakes.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

  1. Basilbetter flavor fit
  2. Oreganoabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Corianderabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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