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Scalloped Fish

A baked dish of flaked whitefish topped with a milk‑based sauce and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Scalloped Fish

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Scalloped Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the whitefish until cooked.

  2. Remove the bones and flake the fish.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine milk, thyme, parsley, and onion in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the mixture until well flavored.

  3. Wet the flour.

  4. Stir the wet flour into melted butter in a separate pan.

  5. Cook the mixture until thickened.

  6. Strain the thickened mixture into the beaten eggs.

  7. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer some salt in a pudding dish.

  2. Place the flaked fish on top of the salt layer.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  4. Cover the dish with cracker crumbs.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Whitefish
Provides the flaked, tender body of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Eggs
Enrich and set the sauce, giving it body when baked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess.

The step that matters

Cook the flour and butter until thickened. The flour must be fully cooked in the butter and milk mixture so it thickens smoothly and loses its raw starchy taste. Straining before adding the eggs removes lumps, and the eggs should be added to a sauce that is not boiling so they do not scramble.

Swap the thyme

The recipe marks thyme as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whitefish, milk, parsley, onion, flour, butter, egg):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against whitefish, milk, parsley, onion, flour, butter, egg. 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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