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Broiled Trout

A trout seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice, and oil, then broiled and served with browned butter or sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Trout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the trout thoroughly.

  2. Split the trout down the back.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  4. Rub the trout with a little salad oil.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil over a clear fire for 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

  2. Serve with browned butter or any suitable sauce.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Trout
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender flesh under the heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.
Salad oil
Coats the skin and flesh so they do not dry out and brown evenly under the broiler.
Browned butter or suitable sauce
Adds richness and a nutty, aromatic note that complements the fish.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire. Broiling is fast, high-heat cooking, so the fish can dry out or overcook quickly. Timing depends on the fish's size, so check it early to keep the flesh moist and flaky.

“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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