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Halibut Steak a LA Flamande

Halibut steak baked with butter, onion, egg yolk, parsley, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Halibut Steak a LA Flamande

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. Butter the bottom of a roasting pan and sprinkle with chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

  3. Place the halibut steak on top.

Season and bake

  1. Brush the steak with the egg yolk.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped onion, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour lemon juice over the fish.

  4. Dot with small pieces of butter.

  5. Bake for 30 minutes, basting frequently.

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. 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut steak
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through gently in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish stay tender as it bakes.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the steak, it adds richness and helps the surface set and brown slightly.
Onion
Lies under and over the fish, adding sweetness and aroma as it softens in the pan juices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavor of the fish.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during the 30-minute bake. Halibut is lean and dries out easily in dry oven heat. Regular basting with the buttery pan juices keeps the surface moist and the flesh tender, and it stops the fish from overcooking before it is done.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, egg, parsley, lemon. 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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