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Fish a LA Creame

Fish served with a cream sauce, topped with butter‑moistened cracker crumbs, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish a LA Creame

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Make the sauce first, or while the fish is boiling.

  2. Heat the cream over hot water.

  3. Put the butter in a granite saucepan, and stir until it melts and bubbles (do not brown it).

  4. Add the dry flour and stir quickly until well mixed.

  5. Add one-third of the cream.

  6. Let it boil.

  7. Stir in the rest of the cream gradually, to have it perfectly smooth.

  8. Add salt and pepper.

Prepare the fish

  1. While you are making this sauce, have a white fish, weighing about four pounds, boiling or steaming until tender.

  2. Remove all the bones, and pick the fish up in small pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. Take a platter, from which the fish is to be served, place on it first a layer of fish (salt and pepper it), then a layer of the cream sauce, until all the fish and sauce are used.

  2. Spread over the top a cupful of cracker crumbs, moistened with butter.

  3. Pin a strip of wet muslin around the edge of your platter; set in a dripper of hot water, and bake until slightly brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

795Calories
15 gProtein
33 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cracker5 saltine crackers (15g)66
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
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 Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog]. 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

Butter
Melted and cooked with flour to form the base of the thickened sauce, adding richness.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce when cooked briefly with melted butter.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce, adding richness and smoothness.
Fish (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish, layered with the sauce.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, lightly browned topping when baked with butter.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream into the roux gradually. Adding the cream slowly while stirring lets the flour starch hydrate evenly, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy. Butter should not be browned first, since that changes the sauce's flavor and color.

“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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