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Pish Pudding

A baked fish and potato pudding with butter, egg, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish and potatoes

  1. If using cold fish and potatoes, proceed; otherwise, boil blue smoked cod in water for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove skin and bones from the fish and flake it into a basin.

  3. Mash the potatoes and mix them with the flaked fish, pepper, and salt.

  4. Bind the mixture with the egg.

Shape and bake

  1. Grease a baking sheet with butter, shape the mixture into an 'S', and brush with egg or milk.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

  3. Transfer to a hot dish and garnish with parsley.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 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

Blue cod
Provides the main flaky protein and the body of the pudding.
Potatoes
Mashed starch that gives the mixture a soft, moist texture and holds the fish together.
Butter
Greases the baking sheet so the shaped pudding releases cleanly and browns evenly.
Egg
Binds the mixture and, brushed on top, promotes browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Bind the mixture with the egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so the egg must be evenly mixed through the fish and potato. Uneven binding can leave the pudding crumbly or loose once baked.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper. 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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