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Fish Creamed, for Coquille or Ramekin Dishes

A creamy fish dish served in coquilles or ramekins, made with butter, onion, parsley, flour, milk or stock, wine or lemon, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Creamed, for Coquille or Ramekin Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil fish in court bouillon until cooked, then cool and pick into small pieces, discarding bones and skin.

  2. For creamed fish, cut pieces into ½ inch squares. For croquettes or fillets, mince finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and sauté onion juice and parsley.

  2. Stir in flour and cook until bubbling, then gradually add milk or fish stock.

  3. Season with salt, cayenne, and add white wine or lemon juice.

  4. In a bowl, mix egg yolk with hot cream, then combine with the sauce.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the fish pieces and mix thoroughly.

  2. Fill coquille or ramekin dishes, cover with browned crumbs, and serve very hot.

  3. Alternatively, fill pâtés or vol-au-vents and serve without crumbs.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the bulk of the dish, providing the main flesh and flavour.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flavour of the onion and parsley.
Flour
Thickens the milk or stock into a smooth, cohesive white sauce.
Milk or fish stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy body.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding richness and body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Tempering the yolk with hot cream first and combining it off the heat helps keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, parsley, flour, milk, pepper, white wine. 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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