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To Boil White Fish, Pike or Salmon

A boiled fish filled with a dressing of bread crumbs, eggs, pepper, salt and butter, finished with a butter‑egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Boil White Fish, Pike or Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Prepare a dressing of bread crumbs, chopped boiled eggs, pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Boil 6 eggs for one hour.

  3. Work the yolks into a paste.

  4. Mix nearly ½ cup of sweet butter with 1 tablespoon of flour, then incorporate the yolks.

  5. Stir in ½ pint of boiling water and add a little salt and pepper.

Stuff and boil the fish

  1. Dress the fish with the dressing.

  2. Fill the body of the fish with the dressing and bind it firmly with cloth strips.

  3. Dredge a towel with flour and wrap the fish in it evenly.

  4. Boil the fish gently in an oblong kettle with a strainer until thoroughly cooked, depending on its size.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the fish to a platter and place it in the oven for a few moments to dry.

  2. Slice the hard-boiled eggs and lay them around the fish on the platter.

  3. Before serving, pour a little drawn butter over the fish.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the dressing so it holds its shape inside the fish.
Eggs
Add richness and set into the dressing, giving it body and a firmer texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and keeping the dressing and fish moist.
Flour
Dusts the towel wrapping and thickens the butter mixture into a smooth base.

The step that matters

Boil the fish gently. Vigorous boiling can break the fish apart and force the stuffing out. A gentle simmer cooks it through evenly while keeping the flesh intact.

“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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