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Fish Pie in a Dish

A savory fish pie made with tench, eels, mushrooms, egg yolks, anchovies, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fish Pie in a Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and skin the tench and eels, then bone them.

  2. Cut the eels into 2-inch pieces and halve the tench.

  3. Layer the fish in a dish, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  4. Mix in whole mushrooms and 6 hard-boiled egg yolks.

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine the bones, shallots, thyme, parsley, chives, anchovies, and stock.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes, then strain and skim off the fat.

  3. Pour half of the stock into the dish with the fish and set aside the rest.

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. Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tench
Forms the main body of the pie, providing firm, flaky fish flesh.
Eels
Adds rich, fatty flesh that stays moist and tender during cooking.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy, crumbly texture to the filling.
Anchovies
Contribute savoury depth to the stock, rounding out the flavour of the fish.
Stock
Provides moisture and body, keeping the fish filling from drying out.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, egg, shallot, thyme, parsley):

  1. Chivethe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, egg, shallot, thyme, parsley. 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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Ling 12Salt 9Cod 8Sauce 4Tench and Eel 4with Tench and Eels 3 See all 121 →

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