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Fish Chartreuse

A steamed dish of flaked cold fish with cream, mashed potatoes, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Chartreuse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the cold fish into flakes and moisten with cream. Season with pepper and salt.

  2. Prepare mashed potatoes and hard-boiled eggs.

Assemble and steam

  1. In a well-buttered mold, layer mashed potatoes, flaked fish, and thick slices of hard-boiled egg alternately.

  2. Steam for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the mold.

  3. Serve very hot.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Cream + potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the flaked main body of the dish, providing its substance and flavor.
Cream
Moistens the flaked fish, keeping it tender and moist during steaming.
Mashed potatoes
Forms the layers that hold the mold together and add soft, starchy body.
Hard-boiled eggs
Adds firm slices and richness between the fish and potato layers.

The step that matters

Steam for the right time. Steaming for too long dries out the fish and can make the potato layers dense, while too little time leaves the center cold and loosely set. Matching the time to the mold size lets the custard-like binding of egg and cream set evenly throughout.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, pepper, egg. 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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