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Baked Halibut with Tomato Sauce

A baked halibut topped with a tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Halibut with Tomato Sauce

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.

Bake the halibut

  1. Wipe the halibut and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Place in a buttered pan, cover with the fat salt pork, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 12-15 minutes.

  3. Remove the fish to a serving dish and discard the pork.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. In a saucepan, cook the tomatoes, onion, clove, and a pinch of salt and pepper for 8 minutes.

  2. Remove the onion and clove, then rub the tomato through a sieve.

  3. Add baking soda and cook until reduced to 2 teaspoons.

  4. Pour the sauce around the fish and garnish with 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Is the main protein, cooked gently in the oven until flaky.
Tomatoes
Form the body of the sauce and add acidity and bright flavour.
Butter
Enriches the pan and adds richness and browning to the fish.
Fat salt pork
Bastes the fish with fat and adds savoury, salty flavour while it bakes.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the tomato sauce, mellowing its acidity and deepening its colour.

The step that matters

Add baking soda and cook until reduced to 2 teaspoons. Baking soda reacts strongly with acid, so adding it too much or too fast can cause foaming and an unpleasant soapy taste. Reducing the sauce concentrates it, so the cook must watch the volume carefully rather than rely on time alone.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, pork, tomato, onion, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, pork, tomato, onion, parsley. 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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