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Fish Chartreuse

A layered dish of flaked cold fish, cream, mashed potatoes, and sliced hard‑boiled eggs, steamed until hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Chartreuse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flake the cold fish.

  2. Moisten the flaked fish with cream, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  3. Prepare mashed potatoes.

  4. Prepare hard-boiled eggs.

  5. Butter a mold.

Assemble and steam

  1. Layer the mold with mashed potatoes.

  2. Layer the mold with flaked fish.

  3. Layer the mold with thick slices of hard-boiled egg.

  4. Repeat the layers until the mold is full.

  5. Steam the assembled dish for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the mold.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Cream + potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavour.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the flaked fish tender during steaming.
Mashed potatoes
Forms soft layers that hold the dish together and add body.
Hard-boiled eggs
Adds firm texture and mild richness between the fish and potato layers.

The step that matters

Steam the assembled dish. Steaming gently heats the fish and eggs without drying them out. Steaming too long or at too high a heat can toughen the egg and dry the fish, so timing should follow the mold size.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, cream, pepper, egg):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, pepper, egg. 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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