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Creamed Whitefish

A baked whitefish dish layered with a creamy milk sauce and topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Creamed Whitefish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil a 2-pound whitefish in salted water until tender.

  2. When it is quite cold, cut the meat into small pieces.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Make a cream sauce of 1 pint milk, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons corn starch, wet with a little of the milk.

  2. Season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Arrange the fish and cream sauce in alternate layers in the dish.

  3. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top with little bits of butter.

  4. Bake in a hot oven until well browned.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

712Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whitefish (in the method)
Provides the flaky protein that forms the body of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, giving it smoothness and moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps the top brown.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a cream sauce as it heats.

The step that matters

Wet the corn starch before adding it to the milk. Starch dropped dry into hot liquid clumps and will not thicken evenly. Mixing it with a little cold milk first lets the granules disperse so the sauce becomes smooth.

“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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