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Cream Fish

A creamy fish dish made with fish, cream or milk, egg, cornstarch, butter, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fish cream

  1. Combine the fish, cream (or milk), and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. In a small bowl, mix the egg and cornstarch with a little cold milk until smooth.

  4. Add the egg mixture to the boiling fish mixture and stir well.

Serve

  1. Serve the cream fish on toast.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Fish
Provides the main flavor and body of the dish.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the dish its rich, smooth texture.
Egg
Thickens the mixture as it heats and adds richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid and helps keep the sauce smooth when boiled.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the boiling fish mixture. Stirring the egg and cornstarch in well keeps the mixture smooth. Cornstarch thickens when it boils, while egg proteins set with gentle heat, so adding it to a rapidly boiling liquid without stirring can cause lumps or curdling.

“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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