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Fish Pie

A baked pie of cold fish topped with white sauce and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cold fish in a pie dish, ensuring it is free from skin and bones.

  2. Cover the fish with white sauce, flavored with anchovy sauce, mushroom ketchup, or Worcestershire sauce, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Spread a layer of smooth mashed potatoes mixed with milk or dripping on top.

  4. Bake for 25 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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the main filling, which is cooked gently in the oven with the sauce.
White sauce
Coats the fish and keeps the filling moist as it bakes.
Potatoes
Form a soft topping that bakes into a golden layer over the filling.
Milk or dripping
Enriches the mashed potato, adding softness and richness to the topping.

The step that matters

Spreading the potato topping. Mashed potato spread smoothly and evenly seals the filling and helps the top brown evenly in the oven. Gaps or a thin layer can let the sauce bubble through and dry the exposed areas.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, sauce, anchovy, 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.

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