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Escaloped Fish

A baked dish of flaked salt cod layered with boiled potatoes, topped with white sauce, parsley, onion, buttered cracker crumbs, and baked until golden.

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 ↓

Escaloped 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 the fish

  1. Soak the salt codfish overnight in cold water, skin side up.

  2. Place the soaked fish in fresh water on the stove, keeping it warm but not boiling.

  3. Remove the fish from the bones in flakes and layer it in a dish.

Layer and season

  1. Season the fish with black pepper, red pepper, and coarse sea salt if needed.

  2. Add a layer of chopped cold boiled potatoes on top of the fish.

  3. Repeat layering until the dish is full.

  4. In a saucepan, prepare a rich white sauce and stir in chopped parsley and onion if desired.

  5. Pour the sauce over the fish and potatoes until well moistened.

Top and bake

  1. Moisten cracker crumbs with melted butter and spread them over the top.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main savory fish flavor and flaky body of the dish.
Cold boiled potatoes
Adds bulk and a soft, starchy texture that soaks up the sauce.
Rich white sauce
Binds the fish and potatoes together and keeps the layers moist as they bake.
Cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden crust on the surface during baking.
Melted butter
Adds fat that helps the cracker crumbs brown evenly.

The step that matters

Keep the soaked fish warm, not boiling. Boiling toughens the proteins in fish and makes it dry and rubbery, so gentle heat keeps the flakes tender before they are baked.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, potato, sauce, parsley, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, potato, sauce, parsley, butter. 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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