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Creamed Fish

A baked fish dish with a butter‑flour‑milk sauce, topped with crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Creamed Fish

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 the sauce

  1. Remove bones from the cold fish and break it into pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until bubbling.

  3. Gradually add the milk, salt, and pepper or cayenne, stirring until thickened.

  4. Add parsley, onion, or lemon juice to the sauce for extra flavor if desired.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pudding dish and layer the fish and sauce alternately.

  2. Top with bread or cracker crumbs.

  3. Add bits of butter.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the melted butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the fish together.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned topping over the layered fish and sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Stirring the flour into melted butter until bubbling cooks out its raw taste, and adding milk gradually while stirring prevents lumps. Stirring until thickened gives a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, milk, pepper, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, milk, pepper, 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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