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Fish Pudding

A baked pudding made with boiled fish, milk, butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the milk base

  1. Scald 2 cups of milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of flour until smooth, then stir the mixture into the hot milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the fish to the milk mixture, then stir in 2 tablespoons of cold milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

  4. Serve with caper sauce.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 pudding and sets into a firm, flaky texture as it bakes.
Milk
Provides moisture and a creamy, custard-like body that binds the pudding.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk through starch gelatinization, giving the pudding structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, which softens texture and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the hot milk. Flour lumps form if the paste is dropped into hot liquid without stirring. Stirring disperses the starch evenly so it thickens smoothly as it heats.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, flour, 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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