Skip to main content
Main

Fish-Pudding

A baked fish mixture with eggs, onions, parsley, mushrooms, bacon, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Fish-Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Trim and chop the fish.

  2. Season the fish with chopped onions, parsley, mushrooms, salt, and pepper.

Assemble

  1. Pound the mixture with the raw eggs.

  2. Line a pudding mold with slices of bacon.

  3. Layer the fish mixture and godiveau in the mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with bacon and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours if large.

  2. Turn out the pudding, remove the bacon, and serve with a plain brown 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the pudding, setting into a firm, sliceable texture when baked.
Eggs
Bind the chopped fish and set during baking, holding the pudding together when turned out.
Bacon
Lines and covers the mold, adding fat and moisture and flavouring the fish as it cooks.
Onions
Add aromatic flavour that seasons the fish mixture through.

The step that matters

Pounding the fish with the raw eggs. Thorough mixing spreads the egg evenly through the fish. As the egg proteins set in the oven, they bind the mixture, so poor mixing can leave the pudding crumbly or loose when turned out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, parsley, mushroom, 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.

More fish pudding recipes

Scandinavian 4 See all 95 →

You might also like

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes