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Cold Fish

A baked fish dish wrapped in mashed potatoes and sealed in a paper bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cold Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mash the potatoes and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Grease a paper bag and place the mashed potatoes flat at the bottom.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the fish flesh with flour, milk, salt, pepper, parsley, and sauce.

  2. Place the mixture on top of the potatoes in the bag.

  3. Seal the bag and place it on the grid in the oven.

  4. Bake for 15 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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish flesh
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its flaky, tender filling.
Potatoes
Form a soft, moist base layer that cushions the fish as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it binds around the fish instead of running off.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the fish mixture while it bakes.

The step that matters

Seal the bag fully before baking. A tight seal traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own moisture. A gap lets steam escape, which can leave the fish dry and unevenly cooked.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, pepper, flour, milk, anchovy. 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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