Name: Baked Halibut a LA Creole
Ingredients: 1 lb halibut steak; 1 cup stewed tomatoes; 1 clove garlic, chopped fine; Butter, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Coarse sea salt, to taste; 1 cup dried bread crumbs

Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Baked Halibut a LA Creole

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

Remove all bones from the halibut steak.
Place the steak in a baking dish and sprinkle with garlic.

Layer and bake

Cover with a layer of stewed tomatoes, then a layer of bread crumbs, bits of butter, pepper, and salt.
Add another layer of stewed tomatoes on top.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.
Serve in the same dish in which it was baked.

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.

Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,090 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 as the protein sets.
Stewed tomatoes: Add moisture and acidity, keeping the fish moist while adding savory flavor.
Dried bread crumbs: Absorb liquid from the tomatoes and butter, forming a crust that browns in the oven.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the topping brown and the fish stay tender.

Swap the clove

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

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Basilfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, garlic, butter, pepper, bread. 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.