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Ckeamed Fish with White Wine

Baked fish served with a white wine and milk sauce containing mushrooms or oysters, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Ckeamed Fish with White Wine

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 the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Salt and pepper the fish and place it in a baking dish.

  3. Bake the fish for about 15 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, boil the milk and thicken it with flour and butter.

  2. Add the mushrooms or oysters, white wine, and parsley to the milk mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the baked fish.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake for an additional 10 minutes.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, which thickens as it is boiled with flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that coats the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps thicken it with flour.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the creamy sauce.
Mushrooms or oysters
Contribute savory, earthy flavor and texture to the sauce.
Browned bread crumbs
Add a crisp, golden browned topping during the final bake.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the hot milk and butter, and the mixture stirred as it thickens, so the sauce turns smooth rather than lumpy. Flour raw in the sauce tastes pasty, and lumps form if it is added to cold liquid all at once.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, white wine, milk, mushroom, flour, onion, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, white wine, milk, mushroom, flour, onion, 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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