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Broiled Shad

Broiled shad is a whole fish cooked on a hot griddle, basted with butter and served with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the griddle

  1. Preheat a long griddle until very hot.

  2. Grease the griddle with butter.

Broil the fish

  1. Place the fish on the griddle and broil until well done, turning frequently.

  2. Brown the fish nicely, occasionally basting with butter.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish garnished with parsley and sliced lemon.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 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, cooking to firm, flaky flesh over direct heat.
Butter
Greases the griddle and, when basted, adds moisture and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Turning and basting while the fish broils. Turning exposes each side to the very hot griddle so it cooks evenly, while basting with butter keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning before the flesh dries 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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