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Escaloped Fish

A baked fish dish with a creamy sauce made from milk, butter, flour, eggs, mace, bay leaf, parsley, onion, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Escaloped 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.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk with the mace, onion, parsley, and bay leaf until boiling.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

  3. Remove the seasoning from the milk.

  4. Stir in the butter and flour mixture until thickened, about 2 minutes.

  5. Add the beaten eggs, then remove from heat.

  6. Stir in the salt and cayenne.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer sauce, then fish.

  2. Repeat until all ingredients are used.

  3. Finish with sauce on top.

  4. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden 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.

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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to start thickening the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the sauce when heated.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned topping in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour starch only thickens properly when it is stirred into hot milk and heated, which swells the granules. Stirring keeps the mixture smooth and prevents lumps. Adding the eggs after thickening and removing the pan from heat avoids curdling them.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, milk, butter, flour, parsley, onion. 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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