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Turbot or Brill Pie

A savory fish pie made with turbot or brill fillets, herbs, eggs, forcemeat balls, butter, fish jelly, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Turbot or Brill Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the bones from the fish and cut it into good-sized pieces.

  2. Rub the fish pieces with pepper, coarse sea salt, and finely chopped savoury herbs.

  3. Sauté the fish in butter until three-quarters cooked, then let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare the pie crust in a dish and layer in the fish, chopped hard-boiled eggs, forcemeat balls, butter pieces, and fish jelly.

  2. Cover with a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes or longer, depending on size.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish fillets
Forms the main body of the pie, cooked partly first so it stays moist during baking.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, rich texture and body to the filling as they are layered through the pie.
Forcemeat balls
Contribute a rich, dense texture that contrasts with the flaky fish.
Fish jelly
Adds moisture and a savoury gel that keeps the filling juicy as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, and helps brown the fish when sautéed.

The step that matters

Sauté the fish until three-quarters cooked. Partly cooking the fish before baking sets its texture and firms the flesh, so it does not overcook or release excess liquid while the pie bakes.

“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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