Skip to main content
Main

Fish Timbale

A baked fish dish made with whitefish, bread crumbs, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Timbale

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop or pound the whitefish to a pulp and press through a coarse sieve.

  2. Mix the fish pulp with soaked bread crumbs, salt, pepper, onion juice, and beaten egg yolk.

  3. Beat the mixture well for 5 minutes, then gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a mold or bowl and fill it no more than two-thirds full.

  2. Place the mold in a pan of hot water and cover with greased paper.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the center is firm, about 20 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size.

  4. Turn out from the mold and serve with lobster, shrimp, or tomato sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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

Whitefish
Provides the main body of the timbale, setting into a firm, delicate texture when cooked.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the fish pulp into a cohesive mixture.
Egg white
Beaten stiff and folded in, it lightens the mixture and helps it rise and set airily.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk or cream, they add moisture and softness that keeps the fish tender.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Stiffly beaten egg white holds air, so it should be folded gently to avoid deflating it. Overmixing collapses the foam and leaves a denser, heavier timbale.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whitefish, bread, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whitefish, bread, pepper, egg, butter. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes