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Broiled Fish

Broiled fish is a simple dish prepared by greasing a double broiler, cooking fish over a brisk fire, and seasoning with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Broiled Fish

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 Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale, clean, rinse, and dry the fish.

  2. Grease a double broiler with suet.

Broil

  1. Place the fish in the broiler and brush lightly with butter.

  2. Cook over a brisk fire, starting with the flesh side for even browning.

  3. Flip the fish and cook the skin side carefully.

  4. Broil a medium-sized fish for about 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the fish from the broiler and place it on a heated platter.

  2. Spread melted butter over the fish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + peppertop 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender flesh under direct heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the surface brown and the flesh stay juicy.

The step that matters

Flip the fish and cook the skin side carefully. The skin can tear or stick, and overcooking dries the flesh. Careful handling keeps the fish intact and moist while the second side 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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