Name: Fish Pie
Ingredients: cold fish (any kind except herrings or salmon), skin and bones removed; white sauce (see recipe on p. 182); anchovy sauce or mushroom ketchup or Worcestershire sauce; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; potatoes, mashed smooth; milk or dripping

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

cold fish (any kind except herrings or salmon), skin and bones removed
white sauce (see recipe on p. 182)
anchovy sauce or mushroom ketchup or Worcestershire sauce
pepper to taste
coarse sea salt to taste
potatoes, mashed smooth
milk or dripping

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.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place the cold fish in a pie dish, ensuring it is free from skin and bones.
Cover the fish with white sauce, flavored with anchovy sauce, mushroom ketchup, or Worcestershire sauce, and season with pepper and salt.
Spread a layer of mashed potatoes over the sauce, mixing in milk or dripping for creaminess.
Bake for 25 minutes until golden and 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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together637 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

Swap the potato

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

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits about as well
Potatothe original
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.