Skip to main content
Main

Fish, Fricandelles

A baked fish dish with anchovies, French roll, eggs, spices, and cream, topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fish, Fricandelles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the crumb of a French roll in milk or wine.

  2. Cut the fish and anchovies into small bits.

  3. Season the fish and anchovies with mace, cayenne, and nutmeg.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the soaked roll.

  2. Add the fish mixture to the beaten yolks.

  3. Warm a little cream carefully and mix it in.

Bake

  1. Grease a mold with butter.

  2. Fill the mold with the fish mixture.

  3. Cover the mixture with bread crumbs.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until hot and browned.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + breadtop 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the fricandelles and sets into a tender, firm mass when baked.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the mixture and help it set firm as it bakes.
French roll
Soaked crumb adds moisture and lightens the texture of the mixture.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savory depth that enriches the flavor of the fish.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the mixture soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Warm the cream carefully before mixing it in. Adding cold cream can cool and loosen the mixture, while overheating it may cause the egg yolks to curdle or scramble. Gentle warming keeps the mixture smooth and evenly set.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, nutmeg, egg, cream, butter, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, nutmeg, egg, cream, butter, bread. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes