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Fish Steaks

Breaded fish steaks served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Fish Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin from the fish and cut the flesh from the bones.

  2. Chop the fish finely and mix with 1/3 to 1/2 its weight in softened bread crumbs.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and grated onion.

  4. Add enough beaten egg yolks to bind the mixture and mix thoroughly.

  5. Form into balls twice the size of an egg, dust with flour, and flatten to a thin steak.

Cook and baste

  1. Place on a buttered paper in a dripping pan and top with a mixture of grated bread and chopped parsley.

  2. Baste occasionally with melted butter while cooking.

Make the gravy

  1. For the gravy, brown 2 ounces of butter in a cup, then stir in 2.5 tablespoons of flour.

  2. Mix well and add ½ pint of boiling water, boiling until thickened.

  3. Season with ½ teaspoon of salt, catsup or Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice if desired.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the body of the steak and provides the main flavor and texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the mixture, keeping the chopped fish tender and light.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture so the steaks hold their shape when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and browning, and keeps the steaks moist while they cook.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by combining with browned butter and boiling water.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water to the butter and flour. Adding liquid all at once to a flour-butter mixture can form lumps. Mixing well first and then adding boiling water while stirring gives a smooth, thickened gravy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, cream, pepper, egg, flour, 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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