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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with pork, onions, lemon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 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

  1. Rub the fish inside and out with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the fish in a dish with sliced onions and sprinkle with lemon juice.

  3. Cover and set aside for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Lay the fish in a baking pan with 4 slices of pork underneath and 3 slices on top.

  2. Pour melted butter over the fish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve hot, garnished with lemon quarters and parsley.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Pork slices
Fat from the slices bastes the fish and adds savory flavor as they cook.
Onions
Sliced onions add aroma and mild sweetness as they soften and release moisture.
Lemon juice
Acidity brightens the flavor and begins to firm the fish surface.
Butter
Fat adds richness and helps the fish surface brown gently in the oven.

The step that matters

Resting the fish in salt, pepper and lemon for 1 hour. Salt draws moisture out of the fish and then it is reabsorbed, seasoning the flesh more deeply. Acid from lemon juice starts to firm the proteins at the surface. Covering keeps the fish from drying while it rests.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pork, butter, pepper, parsley, lemon):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, butter, pepper, parsley, lemon. 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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