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Creamed Fish

A baked fish dish with a creamy sauce of butter, flour, and milk, seasoned with bay leaf, onion juice, salt, and pepper, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Creamed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream butter and flour together in a double boiler.

  2. Add hot milk and stir until thick.

  3. Stir in bay leaf, onion juice, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the bottom of a baking dish with half of the flaked fish.

  2. Pour half of the sauce over the fish.

  3. Add the remaining fish and top with the rest of the sauce.

  4. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, dot with butter, and brown in the oven.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the dish, layered through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and coats the flour to help it blend smoothly.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping when baked.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thick. Flour must be cooked in the butter and hot milk long enough to thicken fully; if it stays thin or lumpy, the sauce will not hold the fish together. Stirring steadily in a double boiler keeps it smooth and prevents scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, butter, flour, pepper, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, flour, pepper, bread. 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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