Skip to main content
Main

Fish Pudding

A baked fish dish with eggs, cream, parsley, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Break the fish into medium-sized pieces.

  3. In a bowl, mix the fish with beaten eggs, cream, parsley, salt, and paprika.

  4. Grease a bowl with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.

  5. Pour the fish mixture into the prepared bowl.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the bowl in a pan of hot water.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Turn out onto a heated dish and serve with cream sauce around it.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Fish + salmontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the fish mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding tender rather than dry.
Fish
Forms the main body of the pudding, giving flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath. Setting the bowl in a pan of hot water moderates the oven heat around the custard-like mixture. Gentle, even heat keeps the eggs from overcooking, curdling or turning rubbery.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, salmon, egg, cream, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, salmon, egg, cream, 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.

More fish pudding recipes

Scandinavian 4 See all 95 →

You might also like

Salmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipes