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Sauce

Panada for Fish Forcemeat

A buttery, egg yolk-based sauce for fish, thickened with flour and seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Panada for Fish Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the water, butter, and salt in a moderate-sized saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Gradually sprinkle in the flour while stirring until the mixture is smooth and stiff.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

  5. Spread the panada on a plate and let it cool before using.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Fine flour
Starch that thickens the water and butter into a stiff, smooth paste.
Egg yolks
Enrich the paste and add richness and binding once stirred in off the heat.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat. Adding unbeaten yolks to a very hot paste can scramble them into lumps. Removing the pan from heat first lets the yolks blend smoothly into the stiff mixture.

“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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