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Baked Fish

A fish baked with butter, salt, pepper, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and a broth of water, vinegar, onion, and carrots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Clean and wipe the fish.

  3. Place butter, salt, and pepper on the fish.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. Make a sauce with butter, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce.

  2. Pour the sauce over the fish and baste often.

  3. Place the fish in a pan, spine side up, and bake for 15 minutes or until slightly browned.

Poach in the fish boiler

  1. Combine equal parts of water and vinegar, onion, carrots, lemon, salt, and pepper in a fish boiler.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the fish and cook until done.

Wrap and fry the smelts

  1. Wrap the fish in a slice of bacon and secure it with a clean straw.

  2. Season smelts with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll the smelts in cornmeal.

  4. Fry the smelts in hot lard.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + carrottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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, cooked gently by baking, poaching or frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the fish stay tender while it bakes and browns.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and a salty, tangy flavor to the basting sauce.
Cornmeal
Forms a crisp, golden coating on the smelts when they are fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that browns the cornmeal coating.

The step that matters

Baste the fish often while it bakes. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in heat. Repeated basting with the butter and lemon sauce adds fat and moisture to the surface, keeping the flesh tender and promoting even browning.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, pepper, sauce, vinegar, onion, carrot):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Mangofits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, pepper, sauce, vinegar, onion, carrot. 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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