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White Fish, a LA Provencale

A creamy sauce of butter, flour, milk, and anchovy essence served over flaked halibut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

White Fish, a LA Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk until smooth.

Assemble

  1. Add the flaked halibut.

  2. Rub the hard boiled egg yolks through a strainer and mix with the anchovy essence.

  3. Combine the egg yolk mixture with the fish and 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the base of the sauce and adds richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce.
Halibut
Provides the main fish, flaked into the sauce.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body to the sauce when mashed through a strainer.
Anchovy essence
Adds a savoury, salty depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the milk until smooth. Adding milk all at once to flour and butter can form lumps. Adding it gradually while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smooth.

“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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