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Fish Mould

A steamed fish cake made with shredded boiled fish, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, pepper, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the shredded fish, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, pepper, salt, and cayenne, and mix all ingredients well.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a buttered mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the mold for 1 hour.

  2. Serve with butter sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape after steaming.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mould a soft, tender body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the texture moist.
Boiled fish
Forms the main body of the mould, providing flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Steam the mold for 1 hour. Steaming cooks the egg proteins gently and evenly, setting the mixture into a firm but tender cake. Steaming too hard or too long can make it rubbery or dry, while too short a time leaves the centre loose and unset.

“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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