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Fish Pie

A baked dish of boiled fish in a creamy sauce topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Drop the onion into the cold milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Remove the onion, then add corn starch mixed with a little cold milk, butter, and seasoning.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer sauce, then fish, and repeat until all ingredients are used.

  2. Cover the top with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes or more at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled fish
Forms the main body of the pie, providing the flaky filling layers.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that keeps the pie moist.
Corn starch or flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden browned topping over the pie.

The step that matters

Adding the starch to the sauce. Starch must be mixed with cold milk first so it disperses without lumps, then it thickens as the sauce heats. Adding it dry or to hot liquid can cause lumps and a thin sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, corn, celery, pepper, bread. 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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