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Sabot a LA Creme Au Gratin

Baked cod fillet topped with a creamy sauce of milk, flour, onions, herbs, nutmeg, butter, eggs, bread crumbs, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sabot a LA Creme Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil a fresh cod or rock weighing 4 to 5 pounds.

  2. Pick out all bones, season lightly with white pepper and salt.

  3. Put aside until the sauce is ready.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix one quart milk smoothly with ¼ lb. flour.

  2. Add 5 small onions, a sprig of thyme, a bunch of parsley tied together, a little grated nutmeg, a teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoonful white pepper.

  3. Place over a quick fire, stir all the time until it forms a paste.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in ½ lb. butter and the yolks of 2 eggs. Mix well together and pass through a sieve.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour some of the sauce into a baking dish.

  2. Layer fish and sauce alternately.

  3. Sprinkle top with bread crumbs and grated cheese.

  4. Bake in oven for ½ hour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

294Calories
16 gProtein
14 gFat
26 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
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 Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod (in the method)
Forms the flaky main body of the dish once boiled and layered with sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens with flour into a smooth custard-like béchamel.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the milk into a paste-like sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the sauce and help it set and bind when baked.
Grated cheese (in the method)
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce over a quick fire. Flour and milk must be stirred constantly while heating, or the flour clumps and scorches on the bottom of the pan. A smooth, thickened base is what keeps the sauce even when it is later combined with the eggs and baked.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, thyme, parsley, onion, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, thyme, parsley, onion, egg, nutmeg. 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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