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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with a seasoned cracker and salt pork dressing, finished with a butter‑basted crust and optional ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Fish

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 the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Scrape and clean the fish, then wash and dry it.

  3. Rub the fish inside and out with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Fill the body of the fish with the dressing made from crushed crackers, chopped salt pork, butter, black pepper, and onion if desired.

  5. Tie the fish closed.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the bottom of a baking pan with water.

  2. Dust the fish with sifted bread or cracker crumbs and baste with butter or drippings.

  3. Thicken the gravy, season to taste, and add tomato ketchup.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so the flesh stays moist inside the stuffing.
Cracker crumbs
Form a dressing that absorbs juices and adds body, and a dusting that helps the outside brown.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the dressing, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing and basting, promoting browning on the surface.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, rounding out its flavor.

The step that matters

Dust and baste the fish before it bakes dry. Crumbs and fat on the surface help the skin brown and protect the flesh from drying out in the oven's dry heat.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, bread, butter, pork, tomato, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, bread, butter, pork, tomato, ketchup. 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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