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Fish Pie

A savory pie with bream, milk or melted butter, short pastry, pepper, sea salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Pie

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

  1. If using fresh fish, fillet and cut into small pieces; if cooked, flake into small pieces.

Assemble the pie

  1. Lay the fish in a buttered pie dish and season with pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

  2. Pour the milk or melted butter over the fish.

  3. Cover with short pastry and brush with egg or milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Bream
Forms the filling; its flesh flakes and becomes tender when baked.
Milk or melted butter
Adds moisture and richness so the fish does not dry out in the oven.
Short pastry
Encloses the fish and browns in the oven, forming a crisp top crust.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma that brightens the rich filling.

The step that matters

Covering the fish with pastry. The pastry seals in steam and moisture, so the fish cooks gently in its own juices. A loose or gapped seal lets moisture escape and can leave the filling dry.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, 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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