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Baked Shad

A whole shad stuffed with bread crumbs, salt, pepper, butter, parsley, and egg yolk, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Shad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix bread crumbs, salt, pepper, butter, parsley, and beaten egg yolk.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the shad with the mixture and sew it up or tie it with string.

  2. Place the stuffed shad in a baking dish, pour a little water and some butter over it.

  3. Bake for 1 to 1.25 hours.

Serve

  1. Garnish with slices of lemon and watercress before serving.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
The whole fish forms the main body of the dish, holding the stuffing while it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and egg yolk to form a moist stuffing that keeps the fish from drying out.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the fish stay moist as it bakes.
Beaten egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together inside the fish during baking.

The step that matters

Stuff and bake. Sewing or tying the fish closed keeps the stuffing inside while it bakes. Baking in a little water and butter helps the flesh cook gently and stay moist rather than drying out in the oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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