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Fish Chartreuse

A steamed fish dish with mashed potatoes and hard‑boiled egg slices, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Chartreuse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Break cold fish into flakes and moisten with cream.

  2. Season with pepper and salt.

Assemble and steam

  1. Prepare mashed potatoes and hard-boiled eggs, cutting the eggs into thick slices.

  2. In a well-buttered mold, layer mashed potatoes, flaked fish, and hard-boiled egg slices alternately.

  3. Steam for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the mold, and serve very 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.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Moistens the flaked fish, keeping it tender and binding the layers softly.
Mashed potatoes
Forms the soft, moist layers that hold the fish and eggs together in the mold.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm texture and mild richness between the layers of fish and potato.
Butter
Greases the mold so the chartreuse releases cleanly and adds richness to the surface.

The step that matters

Steam for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the mold. Steam heats the mold gently and evenly. Too little time leaves the centre cold and loose, while overcooking dries the fish and potato and makes the layers crumbly. Matching the time to the mold size keeps the set even.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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