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Broiled White-fish-fresh

Broiled white fish seasoned with pepper, cooked over fresh coals, finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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-fresh

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and drain the fish.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with pepper and place it inside down on a grill.

Broil and finish

  1. Broil over fresh, bright coals until nicely browned.

  2. Turn the fish for a moment on the other side.

  3. Remove from heat and spread with butter.

  4. For added flavor, place two or three corn cobs under the grill to create smoke.

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 to a flaky texture under direct heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture when spread over the hot fish after cooking.
Pepper
Adds sharp aroma and flavor to the fish surface before broiling.

The step that matters

Broil over fresh, bright coals until nicely browned. Hot, steady heat browns the surface and sets the flesh while keeping it moist. Too little heat steams the fish, while too much dries or chars it before the centre cooks through.

“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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