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Baked Fish

A whole fish baked with a breadcrumb stuffing, butter, onion, and eggs, served with potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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. Wash the fish carefully.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with coarse sea salt.

  3. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs with salt, pepper, chopped onion, and butter.

  4. Stuff the mixture into the fish and secure it to keep it together.

Bake

  1. Place the fish in a baking pan with 1 pint of water.

  2. Season the fish with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Dredge the fish with flour.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

Garnish and serve

  1. Once done, garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs and parsley.

  2. Serve with potatoes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through to become flaky and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices from the fish and bind the stuffing so it holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the fish stay moist and carry flavour.
Flour
Dredging coats the surface, helping it brown and form a light crust.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the stuffing as it softens during baking.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during the bake. Regular basting spoons hot liquid over the fish, keeping the surface moist while it cooks through, so the flesh stays tender rather than drying out over the long bake.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, bread, butter, flour, egg, parsley. 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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