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Cod Fish Pie

A baked pie of minced cod fish, stale bread, milk, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, mustard, and butter, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cod Fish Pie

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. Soak the fish.

  2. Boil the fish.

  3. Remove the skin.

  4. Pick the meat from the bones and mince it very fine.

Make the filling

  1. Combine the minced fish with stale bread in a bowl.

  2. Pour boiling milk over the bread until it is completely wet.

  3. Add parsley, nutmeg, pepper, mustard, and melted butter.

  4. Mix all ingredients well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with pastry.

  2. Pour the fish mixture into the dish and cover with a lid.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cod fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the filling.
Stale bread
Soaks up the milk and gives the filling a soft, binding structure.
Boiling milk
Moistens the bread and adds creaminess to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling moist and tender.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Pour boiling milk over the bread until it is completely wet. The bread must absorb the milk evenly so the filling binds without lumps or dry pockets. Uneven soaking leaves dry bread that does not hold the mixture together.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, milk, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, milk, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, 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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