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Devilled Fish

A baked fish dish with breadcrumbs, egg yolks, paprika, onion juice, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Devilled Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Shred cold, cooked fish and mix it with half its quantity of bread crumbs.

  2. Blend the mixture with the egg yolks and oyster liquor or hot water.

  3. Season with salt, paprika, onion juice, and parsley.

Bake and serve

  1. Put into buttered ramekins or a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs, dot with butter, and bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 filling and gives it its main flavor and texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body, and brown to form a crisp top.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and set when baked, holding the filling together and giving it richness.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown evenly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. The egg yolks set and the crumb topping browns during baking. Overbaking dries the filling and toughens the set yolk, so watch for light browning rather than running the oven longer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, egg, oyster, butter. 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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