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Halibut Steak

Halibut steaks coated in eggs and crackers, fried or broiled, served hot with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Halibut Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the halibut steaks.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Crush the crackers until fine.

  4. Season the fish with salt and pepper.

Coat and cook

  1. Dip each steak into the beaten eggs, then into the crushed crackers.

  2. Fry the coated steaks in hot fat until golden brown, or broil on a buttered grill over a clear fire.

Serve

  1. Serve in a hot dish, butter well, and cover closely.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Halibut steaks
The main protein, which cooks through and flakes once heated.
Eggs
Bind the cracker coating to the fish and help it brown evenly.
Brittle crackers
Form a crisp, golden crust on the outside of the fish.
Hot fat
Conducts heat to brown the coating and gives a rich, crisp finish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the finished fish.

The step that matters

Fry the coated steaks in hot fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to set the egg and cracker coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy and soggy instead of crisp.

“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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