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Baked Tuna Fish

A baked dish of flaked tuna mixed with a corn starch‑based sauce, cheese, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Tuna 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

  1. Flake the fish.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the oil, then whisk in the corn starch and milk to make a sauce.

  2. Add the cheese, salt, and paprika to the sauce.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, arrange alternate layers of fish and sauce.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Fish + cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Corn + cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together880 recipes

    Shared aroma: butanoic acid ethyl ester (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tuna fish or salmon
Provides the main body and protein of the dish, flaked into layers.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and savory flavor.
Skimmed milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which the starch thickens.
Oil
Carries flavor and adds fat to the sauce, helping it feel smooth.

The step that matters

Whisking the corn starch into the milk. Cornstarch must be whisked into the liquid and heated so its starch granules swell and thicken the sauce. If it is left to clump or not heated enough, the sauce stays thin or grainy.

“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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