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Broiled Fish

Broiled fish is a whole fish or steaks cooked over a broiler, seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Broiled Fish

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 Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the head and tail of the fish, optionally the backbone.

  2. Split the fish down the back if desired, or cut large fish into slices for steaks.

  3. Rub butter over the dry fish.

  4. For oily fish, season with only salt and pepper.

Broil and serve

  1. Grease the broiler and sear the flesh side first.

  2. Broil the fish until the flesh separates from the bone, timing based on thickness.

  3. Season, garnish, and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + peppertop 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked until its flesh separates from the bone.
Butter
Coats the dry fish to add richness and help it brown under the broiler.

The step that matters

Sear the flesh side first. Searing the flesh side first under high heat browns the surface and seals in moisture, helping the fish stay juicy as it finishes cooking.

“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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