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Fish Elosh

Fish Elosh is a fish dish made with ham or bacon, shallot, butter, flour, milk, egg, flaked fish, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fish Elosh

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a skillet, fry the minced ham or bacon and shallot in butter until cooked.

  2. Stir in the flour and add the milk.

  3. Let it boil gently for five minutes.

  4. Mix in the egg and flaked fish.

  5. Season with pepper and salt.

Shape and poach

  1. Spread the mixture on a plate.

  2. Let it cool completely.

  3. Mold the mixture into small balls.

  4. Poach the balls in boiling water or fish stock for five to six minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with anchovy sauce poured over them.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a binding sauce that holds the fish mixture together.
Egg
Sets when heated, helping bind the fish mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and carries the flavour of the ham or bacon and shallot.
Fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the mixture.

The step that matters

Let it cool completely. The mixture must be fully cool and firm before shaping, otherwise it stays soft and sticky and the balls can break apart in the poaching water.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, flour, milk, egg, fish, pepper. 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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