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Fish Au Gratin

A baked fish dish topped with anchovy sauce, breadcrumbs, parsley, mushrooms, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a baking dish, combine the onion and white wine.

  3. Season the fish slices with pepper and coarse sea salt, then lay them in the dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Sprinkle chopped parsley and mushrooms over the fish.

  2. Pour the anchovy sauce over everything and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake until the fish is cooked through, timing will vary based on thickness.

  4. Serve in the same dish.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

  5. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish slices
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven as the protein.
Anchovy sauce
Provides savory richness and moisture that keeps the fish from drying out.
Bread crumbs
Form the topping that browns in the oven, adding crisp texture to the gratin.
White wine
Adds acidity and moisture to the base of the dish, lending aroma as it heats.

The step that matters

Bake until the fish is cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and firm when overcooked, so check for flaking at the thickest part rather than relying on a fixed time.

Swap the onion

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

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

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