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Fish-and-Potato Pie

A baked dish of fish and potatoes mixed with margarine, parsley, pepper, salt, and topped with lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish-and-Potato Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Peel and cook the potatoes.

  2. Steam or gently boil the fish, then break it into small pieces, removing any bones.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a basin, mix the fish with the cooked potatoes, margarine, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and top with lemon sauce.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until heated through.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  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

Fish
Forms the main body of the filling and provides its flaky texture.
Potatoes
Add bulk and starch that help bind the filling and give it a soft, cohesive texture.
Margarine
Adds fat that enriches the filling and keeps it moist as it bakes.
Lemon sauce
Adds moisture and sharp acidity that balances the richness of the fat and fish.

The step that matters

Steam or gently boil the fish. Fish proteins toughen and dry out when overcooked. Cooking it gently until just opaque keeps the flakes tender, so they stay moist once baked again in the pie.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, parsley, lemon, sauce. 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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