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Baked Halibut

Baked halibut served with crisp salt pork and drawn butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,386 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Baked Halibut

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

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

  2. Place the halibut in a shallow baking pan and half cover it with milk.

  3. Baste the fish often while baking.

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the halibut into 1‑inch slices, wash in salt water, then dry on a cloth.

  2. Wash and dry the slices of salt pork, then fry them in the pan until crisp on one side.

  3. On a plate, mix flour with salt and pepper, then coat the fish thoroughly on both sides.

Bake and serve

  1. Remove the pork from the pan and lay the fish in the hot pork fat.

  2. Place the crispy pork slices on top of the fish and bake until crisp.

  3. Serve with drawn butter 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. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Halibut
Provides the main body of the dish, flaking into tender pieces when cooked through.
Milk
Adds moisture around the fish, helping it stay tender while it bakes.
Salt pork
Renders fat and salty flavor into the pan, and its crisp slices add texture on top.
Flour
Forms a coating that helps the outside of the fish brown and crisp in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Dry the fish before coating it. Surface moisture stops flour from adhering evenly, so the coating can turn patchy or gummy instead of browning crisp in the hot fat.

“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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