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Fish Mould

A steamed haddock mixture with bread, butter, eggs, pepper, and salt, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish and bread

  1. Boil the haddock until cooked, then remove the bones and flake the fish into pieces.

  2. Soak the bread in milk until soft.

Make and steam the mould

  1. In a bowl, combine the fish, soaked bread, butter, eggs, pepper, and salt. Beat well until mixed.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a mould and steam until set.

Serve

  1. Turn out the mould onto a serving plate and garnish with parsley.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce poured around the mould.

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the main body of the mould and provides the flaked texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it firm when steamed.
Bread soaked in milk
Adds moisture and softness so the mould stays tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Steaming until set. Eggs set when heated gently; if steamed too hard or too long the mixture can become rubbery and dry, so it should be steamed only until firm.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, milk, butter, egg, pepper, parsley. 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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