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Whiting Au Gratin

A baked dish of cleaned whiting topped with butter, flour, herbs, mushrooms, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Whiting Au Gratin

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. In a dish, mix butter, flour, parsley, chives, mushrooms, pepper, and salt.

Layer the fish

  1. Lay the cleaned fish on top of the mixture.

  2. Cover the fish with the same seasoning.

  3. Add butter and grated bread crumbs over the fish.

  4. Moisten the fish with stock.

  5. Layer the fish with additional seasoning.

  6. Layer the fish with bread crumbs.

  7. Dot the top with bits of butter.

  8. Cover the top with bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden and sticking to the dish.

  2. Serve in the baking dish.

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

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

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chive + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently in the layered butter and stock.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread crumbs brown to a golden crust.
All-purpose flour
Mixed with butter and stock to thicken the juices into a light sauce.
Grated bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns during baking.
Stock
Adds moisture so the fish stays tender and the juices can thicken.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Whiting is delicate and cooks quickly, so bake only until the crumbs brown and the fish flakes; longer baking dries the flesh. Butter and bread crumbs brown through Maillard reactions and caramelization, which creates the golden crust.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, fish, butter, flour, parsley, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivethe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, fish, butter, flour, parsley, mushroom, pepper. 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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