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Scalloped Fish and Potatoes

A baked dish of cooked fish topped with mashed potatoes and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Scalloped Fish and Potatoes

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.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a sauce by combining milk, fat, cornstarch, salt, pepper, parsley, and onion.

  2. Add the sauce to the cooked fish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  2. Cover the baking dish with mashed potatoes.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until well browned.

Serve

  1. Garnish with hard‑cooked egg and chopped parsley.

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. Potato + peppertop 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

Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavor and protein.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft topping that browns in the oven and adds moisture.
Skimmed milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the fish together.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Fat
Adds richness and carries flavor in the sauce.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) until well browned. The sauce must be thick and hot throughout before the potato topping browns. Cornstarch thickens only when heated enough, and underbaking leaves the sauce runny while overbaking can dry the potatoes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, potato, milk, pepper, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, milk, pepper, 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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