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Fish Ramekins

Baked fish in ramekins topped with cracker crumbs, butter, and blanched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fish Ramekins

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.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Thicken the milk slightly with the flour, stirring thoroughly.

  3. Add the shredded fish, pepper, coarse sea salt, and celery salt to the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into ramekins.

Top and bake

  1. Cover each ramekin with rolled cracker crumbs and bits of butter.

  2. Place a blanched almond in the center of each ramekin.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Shredded cooked fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a creamy sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the fish together.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on top of the ramekins.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with the flour. Stirring the flour thoroughly into hot milk keeps it from clumping. Smooth dispersion lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the sauce, so the filling holds together rather than turning lumpy or watery.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, pepper, flour, butter, almond):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, pepper, flour, butter, almond. 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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