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Fish a LA Provencale

A creamy fish dish with butter, milk, flour, anchovy essence, and hard‑boiled egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 a LA Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish over a lamp.

  2. Add the flour and stir until mixed.

  3. Pour in the milk and stir until it bubbles.

  4. Blend the egg yolks with the anchovy essence into a smooth paste. Add the paste to the mixture.

  5. Stir for a moment, then add the fish and heat through before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Anchovy + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + fishtop 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. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to the base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the sauce.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Add body and richness, helping the sauce turn creamy.
Cold fish
Main ingredient, warmed through in the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Add the flour and milk gradually while stirring. Flour thickens a liquid only when it is evenly dispersed. Stirring as the milk goes in helps prevent lumps and keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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