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Fish Pudding

A baked fish mixture with eggs, milk, bread, and seasonings, served with watercress and beet garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. Chop the fish finely with parsley and onion.

  2. Beat the butter until foamy, then add the eggs one at a time, stirring well.

  3. Gradually stir in the chopped fish and milk for about 30 minutes.

  4. Add grated bread, salt, and nutmeg, then mix well.

  5. Pour into a well-buttered mold and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, roast flour in butter until light yellow, then simmer with chopped morels and parsley.

  2. Add bouillon and season with salt and nutmeg.

Serve

  1. Serve with watercress mixed with sweet oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and boiled beets.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + watercresstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + watercresstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together533 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding when baked.
Fish
Forms the main body of the pudding, giving it its substance and flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the baked pudding tender rather than dry.
Butter
Enriches the mixture with fat and flavor, and helps the pudding feel rich and smooth.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Morels
Add earthy, savory aroma and texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bake the pudding until set. Eggs set as they heat, so the pudding needs its full baking time to firm up. Pulling it early leaves a loose, wet centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, egg, milk, bread, nutmeg, watercress):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, egg, milk, bread, nutmeg, watercress. 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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