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Baked Fish

Baked fish coated in flour, salt, and pepper, cooked with lard and a potato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Roll the fish in flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Heat lard in a pan and place the fish in it.

  4. Insert a potato into the fish to help it hold its shape.

Bake

  1. Bake until brown and tender, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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, becoming tender and flaky as it cooks through.
Flour
Coats the fish so its surface can brown and form a light crust.
Lard
Adds fat that promotes browning and keeps the fish moist in the pan.
Potato
Is inserted into the fish to help it hold its shape while baking.

The step that matters

Bake until brown and tender, not longer. Fish cooks quickly and becomes dry and firm when overbaked. Checking for flakiness near the lower end of the stated time helps keep it moist.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, pepper. 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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