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Fish Creamed

A baked dish of finely minced white fish in a butter‑flour‑milk sauce topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Creamed

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. Boil the fish for 15 minutes, then remove from water and let cool.

  2. Once cool, mince the fish very finely, removing all bones.

  3. Butter a baking dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. In a bowl, stir together the flour and butter until smooth, then add to the hot milk.

  3. Add the parsley, minced onions, and beaten egg yolk to the milk mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the minced fish and sauce in the baking dish until full.

  2. Spread a thin layer of lightly buttered bread crumbs on top.

  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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the bulk of the dish, providing the main substance of the creamed filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the fish together.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps blend the flour smoothly.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, helping it set when baked.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter to the hot milk. Stirring the flour and butter into a smooth paste before adding it to the hot milk prevents lumps. Adding it cold or unblended lets the flour clump, leaving a grainy sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, flour, butter, parsley, egg, bread. 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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