Name: Scalloped Fish
Ingredients: ½ pint Béchamel sauce; Fried crumbs; 1 lb cooked fish

Why it works: Sauce and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,487 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Scalloped Fish

Ingredients

½ pint Béchamel sauce
Fried crumbs
1 lb cooked fish

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble and bake

In a buttered pie dish or shells, layer large flakes of fish with béchamel sauce.
Sprinkle browned crumbs on top.
Heat through in the oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Sauce + fishtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Béchamel sauce: Provides a creamy, moist binder that coats the fish and keeps it from drying out.
Fish: Forms the main body of the dish, supplying the flaky texture and savory flavor.
Fried crumbs: Add a crisp, golden-brown topping that contrasts with the soft filling.

“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.