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Scalloped Fish

A baked codfish dish layered with a milk, butter, flour, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper sauce and toasted bread topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Scalloped Fish

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped 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 the fish

  1. Soak the codfish in boiling water until fresh.

  2. Poke the fish into pieces and place in a saucepan with boiling water; boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the water off, let the fish cool, and poke into pieces again.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate saucepan, make a sauce by combining milk, butter, flour, Worcestershire sauce, and cayenne pepper; bring to a boil.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a deep dish, layer the fish and sauce alternately until the dish is full.

  2. Grate the hard bread and spread it over the top, then cover with sauce.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Codfish
Provides the main body and flaky texture of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that moistens the fish layers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps it taste smooth.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a sauce that clings to the fish.
Hard bread
Grated over the top, it crisps and browns during baking.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil. Flour only thickens properly when the milk mixture reaches a boil and is stirred, because starch granules must swell fully to set the sauce. A thin, unboiled sauce will not cling to the fish and will run off during baking.

“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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