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Fish Creamed

A creamy fish dish thickened with butter, flour, and egg yolks, seasoned with parsley, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Creamed

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Scald the cream.

  2. Rub the butter and flour together until smooth.

  3. Add the butter-flour mixture to the cream and stir until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and add the mashed yolks of the eggs, parsley, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Mix well and carefully fold in the fish to avoid making it stringy.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to ramekins, shells, or a baking dish.

  2. Cover the top with buttered crumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce that holds the fish together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a soft, creamy body.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the sauce to add richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Folding in the fish. Stirring vigorously or overmixing breaks the fish into shreds and makes the texture stringy. Folding gently keeps the flakes intact and the dish tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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