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Roulettes, Fish

Fish roulottes are fish pieces coated in a thickened butter and flour sauce, seasoned with mace and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Roulettes, Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, brown the flour in the butter over medium heat.

  2. Gradually add milk until the mixture becomes a thick paste.

  3. Stir in the deboned fish, pounded mace, and salt.

  4. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and let cool.

Shape

  1. Once cooled, cut into desired shapes and proceed with further instructions.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Flour and butter 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

Perch, pike, or cod
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it flavor and substance.
Flour
Browned in butter and thickened with milk to form a stiff paste that holds the filling together.
Butter
Carries the flour browning and adds richness to the paste.
Milk
Hydrates the browned flour so it thickens into a smooth, thick paste.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Adding milk slowly while stirring lets the starch in the browned flour hydrate evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, thick paste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk. 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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