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Fish Cutlets

Fish cutlets made from halibut, egg whites, and heavy cream, baked in buttered molds and served with Dutch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fish Cutlets

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish mixture

  1. Finely chop the halibut and force it through a sieve to measure 1⅓ cups.

  2. Pound the fish in a mortar, gradually adding the egg whites.

  3. Mix in the heavy cream and season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into buttered cutlet molds.

  2. Place the molds in a pan of hot water, cover with buttered paper, and bake until the fish is firm.

  3. Turn the cutlets onto a serving dish and pour around Dutch Sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Provides the main body of the cutlet, setting into a firm, tender mass when cooked.
Egg whites
Bind the pounded fish and help it set firm and hold its shape when baked.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cutlets tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Baking the molds in a pan of hot water moderates the heat so the egg-bound fish sets gently. Too much heat would overcook and toughen the proteins, making the cutlets rubbery and grainy.

“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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