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Scalloped Fish

A baked fish dish with milk, onion, parsley, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Scalloped Fish

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sauce

  1. Remove all bones from the fish and chop it into fine bits.

  2. In a saucepan, heat 1 pint of milk over boiling water.

  3. Add the onion, parsley, butter, salt, and white pepper to the milk.

  4. Stir in the corn-starch or flour mixed with a little cold milk and let it boil.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter the sides and bottom of a serving dish.

  2. Layer the minced fish, then the cream mixture, and sprinkle with cracker or bread crumbs.

  3. Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of crumbs on top.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its main flavor and body.
Corn-starch or flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and enriches the texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it creaminess.

The step that matters

Stir in the corn-starch or flour and let it boil. Starch must be mixed with cold milk first and then boiled so the granules swell and thicken the sauce. Without boiling, the sauce stays thin and tastes raw.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, onion, parsley, butter, corn, bread. 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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