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Fish Pie

A savory pie with cod or haddock, bacon, onion, parsley, and a brown sauce gravy, topped with pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Pie

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place a few pieces of bacon at the bottom of a pie dish.

  3. Cut the fresh cod or haddock into pieces and layer over the bacon.

  4. Add the chopped onion and parsley between the layers of fish.

  5. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until brown.

  2. Gradually add the warm water and stir in the brown sauce or catsup.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the gravy over the fish.

  2. Cover with pie crust and bake until golden, about 25-30 minutes.

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. Haddock + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Fresh cod or haddock
Forms the main body of the pie, cooking through gently in the gravy and oven.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, giving the gravy body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter and liquid, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Brown sauce or catsup
Adds tangy, savoury depth and color to the gravy.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavours the fish layer beneath the gravy.

The step that matters

Make the gravy until the flour is cooked. Stirring butter and flour together and cooking them before adding liquid lets the starch cook out raw flavour and thicken smoothly. Adding warm water gradually prevents lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, parsley, pepper, butter, flour, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, parsley, pepper, butter, flour, sauce. 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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