Skip to main content
Main

Timbales of Fish

Fish timbales are steamed fish cakes made with bread crumbs, sweet milk, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fish and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Timbales of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the bread crumbs and sweet milk together.

  2. Pound the fish to a smooth paste, gradually adding the crumbs and milk.

  3. Add salt, cayenne, and onion juice to the mixture.

Make and steam the timbales

  1. When smooth, fold in the beaten egg whites quickly.

  2. Grease the timbale tins and pour in the mixture.

  3. Cover with white paper and steam for 20 minutes.

  4. Serve with a white sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Forms the main body of the timbales, setting into a firm, tender mass when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Soak up milk and bind with the fish, giving the mixture body and a softer texture.
Sweet milk
Moistens the crumbs and keeps the cooked timbales tender and moist.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they lighten the mixture and help it set as it steams.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently and quickly keeps the air whipped into the egg whites. Overmixing deflates them, so the timbales steam up less light and may turn dense.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, milk, pepper, egg. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes