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Whitefish a LA Creme

A whitefish cooked in a creamy sauce of flour, milk, onion, parsley, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Whitefish a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Rub the fish well with coarse sea salt.

  2. Place the fish in a kettle.

  3. Cover the fish with warm water.

  4. Bring the water to a boil.

  5. Reduce the heat.

  6. Simmer for 1 hour.

  7. Drain the fish.

  8. Remove the large bones.

Make the sauce

  1. Add 1 ounce of flour to a saucepan.

  2. Gradually mix in 1 cup of milk until smooth.

  3. Add the sliced onion.

  4. Add the parsley.

  5. Add the nutmeg.

  6. Add the salt.

  7. Add the pepper.

  8. Cook over medium heat.

  9. Stir constantly until thickened.

  10. Remove from heat.

  11. Stir in ½ pound of butter.

  12. Pass the sauce through a sieve.

Serve

  1. 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Whitefish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently by simmering until tender.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky finish when stirred into the hot sauce.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until thickened. Flour thickens milk only when heated and stirred, so stopping early leaves a thin sauce and stirring too little can scorch or form lumps at the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whitefish, flour, milk, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whitefish, flour, milk, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, 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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