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Fish Pie

A savory pie made with boiled fish, herbs, milk sauce, and topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish until cooked.

  2. Let the fish cool and remove the bones.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Make the sauce

  1. Tie the thyme, parsley, nutmeg, salt, and onions in a bag.

  2. Boil the bag in the milk until the onions are tender.

  3. Melt the butter.

  4. Mix the flour into the melted butter until smooth.

  5. Strain the milk into the butter-flour mixture.

  6. Stir the mixture until it thickens.

  7. Add the egg yolks to the sauce.

  8. Mix the sauce well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the fish and sauce in a baking dish.

  2. Season the layered dish well.

  3. Top the dish with bread crumbs.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Firm fish
Forms the bulk of the pie and provides the main flesh texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it body once thickened.
Butter
Fat that is cooked with flour to make the roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Starch that thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Egg yolks
Enriches the sauce, adding richness and helping it set softly when baked.
Onions
Steeped in the milk to add sweetness and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture until it thickens. Flour must be cooked with the butter and milk until the starch swells and thickens the sauce. Adding the egg yolks to a sauce that is too hot can scramble them, so the sauce should be thickened before the yolks go in.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, milk, thyme, parsley, nutmeg, 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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