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A creamy fish dish made by boiling fish, then simmering in milk with flour, butter, egg, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the fish and tear it into bits. Soak it in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the water and place the fish in a frying pan. Add enough fresh cold water to cover it.

  3. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes until the fish is cooked.

  4. Drain the fish well.

Make the milk sauce

  1. Place the fish in a double boiler with the milk, or carefully pour the milk over the fish in the pan while stirring constantly to prevent scorching.

  2. Once the milk is boiling, stir in the flour and butter (or wet corn-starch with a little cold milk).

  3. Cook slowly for 5 minutes.

  4. Season with pepper and salt if needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon of milk.

  3. Let it stand for 2 minutes.

  4. Serve on a hot platter.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender when simmered and cooked through.
Milk
Provides the liquid base of the sauce and carries the dish's creamy texture.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and thickens it gently when stirred in off the heat.
Flour or corn-starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg off the heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding the beaten egg to a boiling sauce can scramble it into lumps. Removing the pan from heat first lets the egg thicken the sauce gently and evenly.

“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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