Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Planked Shad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Purchase a seasoned oak shad board from a house-furnishing store.
Cut off the head and tail of the shad, split it down the back, wash, and dry it.
Sprinkle salt and pepper on the shad.
Cook and serve
Heat the shad board over a fire until very hot.
Place the shad, back side down, within the wires of the hot board.
Roast the shad, turning the board frequently to absorb the juices.
When cooked, add fresh butter and serve on the board with a tray underneath.
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.
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Shad
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into moist, flaky flesh when roasted.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and fat that enhances flavour and moisture when added at the end.
The step that matters
Heating the shad board until very hot. A well-heated board starts browning and sealing the fish quickly, so it cooks through without drying out or sticking to the wood.
“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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