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Fish Pies

A savory pie made with fish, bread crumbs, butter, herbs, and pastry, baked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Soak the stale bread crumbs in enough milk to moisten them.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the bread crumbs.

  3. Heat over the fire until smooth. Stir in parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Pound half of the fish flesh and mix it with the bread mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Slice the remaining fish and layer it in a deep dish with the forcemeat and bits of butter.

  2. Pour the fish broth over the layers and top with bacon slices.

  3. Cover with puff pastry, leaving a hole for steam to escape.

  4. Cover with buttered paper.

  5. Bake for 3 hours at 300°F (150°C).

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the paper, fill the hole with stock mixed with sherry or white wine, and serve cold.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and bind with the fish to form a soft, cohesive forcemeat.
Fish
Forms the body of the pie, with half pounded into the filling and half sliced for layering.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the forcemeat and layers.
Fish broth
Supplies moisture so the fish stays tender during the long, slow bake.
Bacon
Adds savory, salty fat that flavours the layers as it renders.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, browned top crust that seals the dish.

The step that matters

Baking the pie covered at low heat. Baking slowly at 300°F for three hours gently cooks the fish through while the steam vent lets pressure escape, keeping the filling moist rather than dry or tough.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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