Skip to main content
Main

Fish Cream

A creamy fish dish made with shredded fish, cream, milk, egg white, bread crumbs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Weigh the fish free from skin and bone, and shred it finely with a knife.

  2. Put the fish into a mortar and pound it well.

Make the cream

  1. Rinse a small saucepan with cold water to prevent sticking.

  2. Add the butter to the saucepan and heat it.

  3. Mix in the pounded fish, cream, milk, egg white, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  4. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens, stirring constantly.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the body of the cream, giving it substance and a delicate flavour.
Egg white
Helps bind the mixture and set it as it cooks.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving a smoother, softer texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg white and fish proteins set when heated, so high heat or stopping the stirring can scorch the base or cause it to curdle and turn grainy instead of thickening smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

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

More fish cream recipes

Sauce 18 See all 4 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipes