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Fish Timbales

A steamed fish dish formed in timbale molds, made with stale bread, cream, butter, eggs, and cooked fish.

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 ↓

Fish Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cook stale bread and cream together for 10 minutes.

  2. Add soft butter, salt, pepper, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Cool slightly.

  4. Mix in cooked fish.

  5. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill buttered timbale molds.

  2. Steam for 30 minutes, or longer if using one large mold.

  3. Turn out.

  4. Serve with Hollandaise sauce.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and a smooth, custard-like body.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lighten the mixture and help it set airy when steamed.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture tender as it cooks.
Stale bread
Soaks up the cream and gives the custard body and structure.
Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the timbale and provides its flavor.

The step that matters

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the whipped foam intact. Overmixing deflates the air, so the timbale steams up dense instead of light.

“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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