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Baked Shad

Baked Shad is a whole fish coated in bread crumbs, butter, herbs, and baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Shad

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

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

  2. Mix the bread crumbs, salt, pepper, butter, parsley, and egg yolk.

  3. Stuff the shad with the mixture and sew it up or tie it with string.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour water and some butter over the fish.

  2. Bake for 1 to 1¼ hours, as you would a fowl.

  3. Garnish with sliced lemon before serving.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad
The main fish, which is the body of the dish and cooks through in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a soft stuffing that absorbs moisture and fat from the butter and egg yolk.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together around the fish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and the basting liquid, aiding browning and flavour.

The step that matters

Bake for 1 to 1¼ hours, as you would a fowl. Fish is dense and can dry out quickly, while the stuffing in the cavity needs time to heat through. Checking for flaking at the thicker parts helps avoid overcooking the flesh while ensuring the centre is done.

“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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