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Scalloped Fish

Scalloped fish is a baked dish of flaked whitefish topped with a milk and flour 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, then remove the bones and flake the fish.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, thyme, parsley, and onion. Simmer until well flavored.

  2. Wet the flour and stir it into the butter in a separate pan. Cook until thickened.

  3. Strain the mixture into the beaten eggs and season with pepper and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. In a pudding dish, layer some salt, followed by a layer of fish, then pour sauce on top.

  2. Cover with cracker crumbs and 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 fish that forms the body of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and helps form the flour-based thickener.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce when gently combined, giving it a set, custard-like texture.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture into the beaten eggs. Adding hot sauce to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Pour slowly while whisking so the eggs warm gradually and the sauce stays smooth.

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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