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Baked Red Snapper

A baked red snapper fillet topped with bacon, butter, and a sauce of flour, water, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Red Snapper

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Score the fish an inch and a half apart.

  2. Lay strips of bacon in the incisions.

  3. Spread the butter over the fish and add water and salt.

  4. Bake the fish on a cloth at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. When done, pour off the liquid for the sauce; if less than ½ cup, add water.

  2. For the sauce, mix the flour with a little of the cooled liquid, then add the rest and boil until thick.

  3. Stir in the chopped hard boiled egg 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Red snapper
The main protein, which the bacon, butter and water cook and moisten as it bakes.
Bacon
Fat rendered into the incisions, adding savory flavor and moisture to the fish as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish surface, helping it stay moist and carry flavor.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a sauce when it is mixed smooth and boiled.
Hard boiled egg
Adds body and a mild richness to the sauce once stirred in.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after adding flour. Flour must be mixed smooth with a little cooled liquid first, then boiled, so starch swells evenly and thickens the sauce without lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against snapper, butter, flour, 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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