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Scolloped Fish

A baked fish dish coated with breadcrumbs and butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scolloped Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Season the bread crumbs with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg.

  3. Remove skin and bones from the cold fish and cut it into ¾-inch pieces.

  4. Season the fish with salt, white pepper, and cayenne.

  5. Mix the fish with sauce or dissolved butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer some crumbs in a dish or scallop shells, add the fish, and cover with more crumbs.

  2. Pour 2 ounces of dissolved butter over the top.

  3. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve in the same dish on a folded napkin.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust and absorb moisture from the fish.
Fish
Provides the main body of the dish, flaking tender when gently cooked.
Dissolved butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumbs brown evenly.

The step that matters

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Baking too long dries the fish and toughens the crumbs, while stopping too early leaves the crust pale and the fish underdone. Watch the color and the flake of the fish.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, nutmeg, fish, sauce, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, nutmeg, fish, sauce, butter. 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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