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Fish Pie

A savory pie made with cooked fish, white sauce, mashed potatoes, and topped with dripping, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper 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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Mix the fish with the white sauce and place it in a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the mixture with nicely mashed potatoes.

  2. Dot the top with a little dripping.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven 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. Potato + peppertop 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. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Sauce + potatotop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Provides the main filling and savory flavor of the pie.
White sauce
Binds the fish into a moist, creamy filling.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft topping that covers the filling while baking.
Dripping
Adds fat to the potato topping, helping it brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dot the top with a little dripping. Fat on the potato surface promotes browning in the oven, so skipping it can leave the topping pale. Spreading the potatoes evenly over the filling also helps it brown uniformly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, sauce, pepper. 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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