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Fish Pies

A savory pie made with fish, bread crumbs, butter, herbs, and bacon, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 bread crumbs in enough milk to moisten them.

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

  3. Beat the mixture until smooth over low heat.

  4. Stir in parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat to cool.

  6. Skin and bone the fish.

  7. Scrape and pound half of the fish flesh.

  8. Mix the pounded flesh with the bread mixture.

  9. Season the remaining fish.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cut the seasoned fish into slices.

  2. Layer the fish slices in a deep dish with the forcemeat and bits of butter.

  3. Pour the fish broth over the layers.

  4. Top the layers with bacon slices.

  5. Cover the dish with puff paste.

  6. Leave a hole in the center of the puff paste for steam to escape.

  7. Cover the puff paste with buttered paper.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Remove the buttered paper.

  3. Fill the hole with stock mixed with sherry or white wine.

  4. 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
Soaked in milk and mixed with butter to form a moist, binding forcemeat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the forcemeat and the layers.
Flounder, cod, bass, or mackerel
Forms the main body of the pie, with pounded flesh binding the layers.
Fish broth or consomme or veal stock
Moistens the layers and gives savory depth as the pie bakes.
Bacon
Adds savory fat and flavor over the fish layers.
Puff paste
Forms a crisp, browned crust that seals the pie.

The step that matters

Leave a hole in the center of the puff paste. The vent lets steam escape during the long bake, so the pastry stays crisp rather than soggy or bursting, and the liquid inside does not overpressurize the crust.

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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