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Fish Au Gratin

A baked fish dish with butter, onion, parsley, wine, mushrooms, anchovy sauce, and a flour‑butter broth sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the fish, then slice and lay it in a pan.

  2. Spread the fish with ½ cup of butter, 1 tablespoon of chopped onion, and 5 sprigs of parsley.

  3. Pour ½ cup of white wine over the fish, then season with salt and pepper.

  4. Slice 4 mushrooms and place them on top of the fish.

  5. Pour ½ cup of anchovy sauce over the fish and sprinkle with rolled cracker.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. For an alternative sauce, brown 1 teaspoon of flour in 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Add ½ cup of broth and some fish gravy to the flour mixture, cooking for a few minutes.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until cooked through.

  4. Pour the sauce over the fish a few minutes before removing it from the oven.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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, cooking through in the oven to become tender and flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the fish stay tender while it bakes.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the fish and balance its richness.
Flour
Browned in butter, it thickens the sauce so it clings to the fish.
Rolled cracker
Forms a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Pour the sauce over the fish a few minutes before removing it from the oven. Adding the sauce near the end lets it heat through and form a golden surface without overcooking the fish, which can dry out and toughen with prolonged heat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, parsley, white wine, pepper, mushroom, anchovy. 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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