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Baked Stuffed Fish

A fish baked with strips of fat salt pork, seasoned with sea salt and black pepper, then coated in butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and pork work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 668 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Baked Stuffed Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove gills from the fish and insert narrow strips of fat salt pork into gashes on one side.

  2. Shape the fish with skewers in the form of an 'S' and fasten with small twine.

  3. Place the fish on a greased baking sheet in a dripping pan.

Season and coat

  1. Sprinkle the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Brush the fish with melted butter.

  3. Dredge the fish with flour.

  4. Surround the fish with small pieces of fat salt pork.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°C), basting as soon as the fat is rendered, and continue basting every 10 minutes.

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. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fat salt pork
Melts and bastes the fish, adding fat and savoury flavour as it renders.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside brown during baking.
Flour
Dries the surface and helps form a light, browned crust.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Basting spreads rendered fat over the fish, keeping the surface moist and helping it brown evenly. Starting once the pork fat has rendered and repeating every 10 minutes keeps the flesh from drying out.

“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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