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Broiled White Fish

A whole white fish is cleaned, split, soaked, and broiled with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Broiled White Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and split the fish down the back.

  2. Soak the fish in salted water for several hours.

  3. Wipe the fish dry and grease a grill or gridiron.

Broil

  1. Place the fish on the grill over hot coals.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper.

  3. Start cooking with the flesh side down.

  4. When nicely browned, carefully turn the fish to the other side.

  5. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until nicely browned.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender flesh over direct heat.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the flesh and, after soaking, helps firm the surface for browning.
Oil or butter
Greases the grill so the skin does not stick and tear when turned.

The step that matters

Turning the fish. Turn only once the flesh side has browned and released from the grill, since moving it early tears the skin and flesh. Gentle handling keeps the split fish in one piece.

“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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