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Escalloped Fish

A baked fish dish layered with cream sauce and topped with buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Escalloped Fish

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Escalloped Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare a thick cream sauce.

  2. Butter a baking dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Flake the fish and layer it in the dish with the cream sauce to moisten it.

  2. Continue layering fish and sauce, ending with sauce on top.

  3. Cover with buttered cracker or bread crumbs.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crumbs are 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.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Sauce + fishtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + fishtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together937 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream sauce
Moistens the flaked fish and keeps the dish from drying out as it bakes.
Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the dish, layered with the sauce.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Form a topping that browns in the oven, adding crisp texture.

The step that matters

Layering fish with sauce. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in heat. Coating each layer with thick sauce and finishing with sauce on top keeps the flakes moist while the topping browns.

“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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