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Fish Creamed for Coquille or Ramekin

A creamy fish dish served in coquilles or ramekins, made with butter, onion, parsley, flour, milk or stock, wine or lemon, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Creamed for Coquille or Ramekin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil fish in Court Bouillon until cooked.

  2. Cool the fish.

  3. Pick the fish into small pieces, discarding bones and skin.

  4. Cut the fish into 1‑inch square pieces for creamed fish.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Sauté onion juice and parsley.

  3. Add flour and cook until bubbling.

  4. Gradually stir in milk or fish stock.

  5. Season with salt, cayenne, and white wine or lemon juice.

  6. Combine egg yolk and hot cream in a bowl.

  7. Blend the egg yolk and hot cream into the sauce.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the fish pieces and mix well.

  2. Fill coquille or ramekin dishes.

  3. Top with browned crumbs.

  4. Serve very 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the flaky texture and substance of the filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour, and forms the base for the flour roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk or stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk or fish stock
Forms the liquid of the sauce, giving it body and a creamy consistency.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding richness and smoothness when blended in.
Hot cream
Adds richness and moisture to the sauce, making it silkier.

The step that matters

Blend the egg yolk and hot cream into the sauce. Egg yolk can scramble if it meets very hot liquid directly. Mixing it with hot cream first and adding it gradually to the sauce tempers it, so the sauce thickens smoothly and stays creamy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, parsley, flour, milk, pepper, white wine. 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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