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Fish Cream

A mousse-like dish made from halibut, egg whites, whipped cream, salt, pepper, served with Hollandaise sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the halibut carefully and pick it apart.

  2. Mash the fish with a wooden spoon until perfectly fine.

Make the mousse

  1. Mix the egg whites thoroughly into the fish.

  2. Stir in the whipped cream.

  3. Add salt and a dash of pepper.

  4. Pack the mixture into small molds.

Steam and serve

  1. Stand the molds in a steamer and steam for 20 minutes.

  2. Turn out onto a heated dish and pour sauce Hollandaise over them.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the body of the mousse, providing the main structure once cooked and mashed.
Egg whites
Set during steaming to bind the fish and give the mousse its light, firm structure.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, keeping the mousse light and moist and giving a tender texture.

The step that matters

Mashing the fish until perfectly fine. Fine, smooth fish blends evenly with the egg whites and cream. Lumps leave a grainy texture and weak spots in the set mousse.

“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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