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Fish a LA Creme

A baked fish dish with a creamy milk and flour sauce, topped with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Fish a LA Creme

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish a LA Creme

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.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish in salted water until cooked.

  2. Let the fish cool.

  3. Remove skin and bones.

  4. Flake the fish.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Heat the milk over medium heat in a pot.

  2. Stir in the flour mixed with butter until smooth.

  3. Add the chopped onion, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cook until the mixture thickens to a creamy consistency.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the flaked fish and the creamy dressing in a baking dish until all ingredients are used.

  2. Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top.

  3. Bake 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.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

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, flaked into the sauce to give it substance.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps bind the flour into a smooth roux.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and butter into the milk until smooth. Flour added to hot liquid can clump; mixing it smoothly with the butter and stirring steadily lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Leekbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, flour, butter, parsley, thyme, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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