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Fish on Toast

A dish of flaked fish simmered in milk or cream, thickened with flour and butter, served over toast and garnished with hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Pick the fish into flakes.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the fish with milk or cream.

  3. If using milk, stir in flour mixed with butter until creamy.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. If using cream, thicken with flour mixed with a little cream and omit the butter.

  6. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over toast and garnish with hard boiled eggs.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavor and protein.
Flour
Thickens the milk or cream into a creamy sauce as it heats.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and gives it a smooth, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the milk-based sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be mixed smoothly with butter or a little cream before stirring in, otherwise it clumps. Stirring it into the hot liquid gradually lets starch swell evenly, giving a smooth, creamy sauce rather than lumps.

“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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