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Smothered Fish

Fish squares smothered in a butter and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Smothered Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the fish

  1. Dredge the fish squares in flour.

  2. Place the fish in a pan.

  3. Add a lump of butter on each piece. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Pour in the hot water.

  5. Cook until done.

Make the cream sauce and serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a platter.

  2. In a separate pan, mix the cream with 1 tablespoon of flour. Cook until thickened.

  3. Season the cream sauce with salt and pepper.

  4. Pour the sauce over the fish.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in butter and hot water.
Flour
Coats the fish and thickens the cream sauce, giving body to both.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the fish brown lightly.
Cream
Makes the sauce rich and smooth once thickened with flour.

The step that matters

Cooking the cream sauce until thickened. Flour needs to be cooked long enough in the cream to lose its raw taste and thicken fully. Stopping early leaves a thin or floury sauce.

“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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