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Fish Pie

A savory pie with layers of bacon, cod or haddock, onion, parsley, pepper, sea salt, topped with a crust and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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.

Assemble

  1. Place a few slices of bacon at the bottom of a pie dish.

  2. Layer pieces of fresh cod or haddock over the bacon.

  3. Sprinkle with minced onion, parsley, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Add more layers, finishing with bacon on top.

Make the sauce

  1. In a hot saucepan, brown 1 tablespoon of flour with 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Add hot water and 1 tablespoon of tomato sauce or Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish.

Crust and bake

  1. Make a rich crust.

  2. Cover the dish with the crust.

  3. Prick holes in the crust with a fork.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Serve with potatoes.

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

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

Fresh cod or haddock
Forms the main body of the pie and sets into flakes when baked.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and salty flavour as it renders into the fish layers.
Flour
Browned with butter, it thickens the sauce so it clings to the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour brown for a nutty flavour.
Tomato sauce or worcestershire sauce
Adds acidity and savoury depth to the sauce poured over the fish.

The step that matters

Brown the flour and butter before adding the hot water. Cooking flour in fat first removes its raw taste and allows it to thicken smoothly. Adding it cold or unbrowned can leave lumps and a pasty flavour.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

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