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Fish Pudding

A steamed fish pudding made with fish, breadcrumbs, eggs, butter or bacon, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove all skin and bones from the fish and pound it until smooth.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, diced bacon (or butter), pepper, salt, and lemon juice to the fish.

  3. Mix in the well-beaten eggs until fully combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered pudding basin.

  2. Steam for one hour.

  3. Turn out onto a plate and pour the parsley sauce over the top.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 pudding and gives it its flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it firm when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a softer, lighter body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture; bacon fat can replace it for a smoky note.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fish flavour.

The step that matters

Mix in the well-beaten eggs until fully combined. Eggs set when heated and bind the mixture. If they are unevenly mixed, the pudding may set in patches and hold together poorly when turned out.

“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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