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Escalloped Fish

Escalloped fish is a baked dish of whitefish topped with a thickened milk sauce and seasoned with onions, parsley, and thyme.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Escalloped Fish

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Escalloped 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.

Prepare the fish

  1. Steam the whitefish until tender, then remove the bones and sprinkle with pepper and salt.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan and thicken it with the flour mixed with cold milk.

  2. Once cool, add the eggs and butter to the thickened milk mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and sauce until full.

  2. Season with onions, parsley, and thyme, then cover the top with grated bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Whitefish
Forms the main body of the dish, providing flaky texture once steamed and boned.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the fish together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy, moist texture.
Eggs
Set when baked, helping bind the sauce and give the dish structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, improving flavor and mouthfeel.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the sauce. If the thickened milk is still hot when the eggs go in, they can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Letting it cool first keeps the sauce silky and lets the eggs set gently during baking.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against whitefish, pepper, milk, flour, egg, butter, parsley. 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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