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Fish Pie

A baked pie made with flaked fish, bread crumbs, milk, butter, spices, and topped with mashed potato.

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 ↓

Fish Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the fish and flake it well.

  2. Boil the bread crumbs in the milk with the butter, pepper, grated nutmeg, salt, and chopped parsley.

  3. Mix the boiled mixture with the flaked fish and place it in a greased pie dish.

Top and bake

  1. Cover with a layer of mashed potato.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°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. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the main body of the filling once flaked.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and butter, thickening the filling and giving it body.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and forms a creamy binding sauce with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling moist and flavourful.
Mashed potato
Forms a topping that browns in the oven and seals in moisture.

The step that matters

Boil the bread crumbs in the milk with the butter. The crumbs must absorb the milk and thicken into a binding base. If the mixture is too thin, the filling will be loose and watery once baked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, bread, milk, parsley, pepper, potato. 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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