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Baked Fish

A whole fish stuffed with salt pork, seasoned, and baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and dry the fish thoroughly.

  2. Stuff the fish and sew up the opening with a trussing needle.

  3. Cut three gashes in each side of the fish and insert slices of salt pork.

  4. Truss the fish into an 'S' shape using a double white cotton cord.

  5. Dredge the fish with salt, pepper, and flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish on slices of larding pork in a baking pan and cover with more pork slices.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes per pound, basting frequently with the pork drippings.

  3. If needed, add a little water for basting.

  4. Serve with a brown sauce, garnished with lemon and parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through gently to become flaky and moist.
Salt pork slices
Release fat during baking, adding moisture and savory flavor to the fish.
Flour
Dredged on the fish, it helps the surface brown lightly and form a thin crust.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and helping the surface brown.

The step that matters

Baste with the pork drippings during baking. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Regular basting with the rendered fat keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

“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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