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Fish Pie

A baked pie of haddock, oysters, and crushed crackers, seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the haddock until cooked, then remove all bones and skin.

Layer and bake

  1. In a tin dish, layer the fish, followed by a few oysters and a sprinkle of crushed crackers.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg if desired.

  3. Repeat layering, adding crumbs of butter and pouring in the oyster liquor and milk.

  4. Top with a final layer of crushed crackers sprinkled with butter.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the flaky, substantial body of the pie.
Oysters
Adds a briny, savoury flavour that carries through the dish.
Crackers
Crushed crumbs soak up liquid and help bind the layers together.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the layers from drying out in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Layering and moisture. Pour the oyster liquor and milk evenly over the layers before baking. Crumbs and fish absorb liquid as they heat, so too little liquid leaves the pie dry, while the proteins in the fish set as it bakes.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, oyster, pepper, milk, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, oyster, pepper, milk, butter. 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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