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Halibut Pie

A savory pie with halibut, butter, anchovy sauce, and pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Halibut 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. Remove the skin from the halibut and cut the flesh into thick slices.

  2. Season the halibut with coarse sea salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and powdered mace.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the halibut slices in a pie dish and add pieces of butter and anchovy sauce.

  2. Line the edges of the dish with pastry and cover with a good crust.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for one hour or more.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the pie and cooks through in the oven as the filling.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out as it bakes.
Anchovy sauce
Adds savory, salty depth to the fish filling.
Pastry
Encloses the fish, holding in moisture and forming the crust that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until the fish is cooked through. Thick halibut slices need a long, steady bake so the centre cooks through while the crust browns. Underbaking leaves the fish raw in the middle; overbaking dries the flesh.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, anchovy, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, anchovy, sauce. 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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