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Fish Relish

A baked layered dish of mashed potatoes, cold fish, roe, and egg, seasoned with butter, parsley, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Relish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Dry the roe after boiling it well.

  3. Mince the cold fish and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Mix the roe with the drawn butter and the yolks of the boiled eggs.

  5. Cut the egg whites into thin rings.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a deep buttered dish, layer mashed potatoes, then fish, followed by the butter mixture with egg whites.

  2. Repeat layers, finishing with mashed potatoes on top.

  3. Cover and bake until it smokes.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Mashed potato
Forms the soft, moist body of each layer.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown.
Cold fish
Provides the main flavor and the savory filling of the dish.

The step that matters

Cover and bake until it smokes. Covering traps steam so the layers heat through evenly and stay moist. Smoking means the butter is overheating and starting to scorch, so the bake should be watched closely toward the end.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

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