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Minced Fish

A baked dish of minced fish with a creamy mushroom sauce topped with cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Minced Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over low heat, being careful not to brown it.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the milk or cream, stirring continually until it boils.

Combine and bake

  1. Add the mushrooms and their liquid, then pour this mixture over the minced fish and mix carefully.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Transfer everything to a baking pan and grate cheese over the top.

  4. Place in a 350°F (175°C) oven and allow to brown.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body and protein of the dish, held together by the sauce.
Milk or cream
Forms the smooth liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce by gelatinizing its starch as it heats.
Cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Heating the milk or cream until it boils. The sauce must be stirred constantly as it heats. Flour starch swells and thickens the liquid only once it reaches a boil, and stopping early leaves it thin or lumpy.

“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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