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Hashed Fish

A dish of chopped cold fish mixed with omelet, optional mushrooms, parsley, butter, bread, egg yolks, seasoned, and stewed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Hashed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the boned cold fish with the cold omelet and mushrooms, if using.

  2. Mix in chopped parsley, butter, soaked bread, and chopped egg yolks.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Stew gently with a little water for 30 minutes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 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
Provides the main body and flakes of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while the hash stews.
Soaked bread
Soaked in milk, it keeps the mixture moist and tender.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture into a soft texture.

The step that matters

Stew gently with a little water. Gentle heat with only a little water cooks the mixture through and keeps it moist without drying or scorching it. Too much heat or liquid can make the hash tough or watery.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, mushroom, butter, bread, milk, egg, 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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