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A Fish Pie

A savory pie made with sole fillets, boiled eggs, and a flaky pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Fish Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin and fillet the sole.

  2. Half cook the fillets.

  3. Let the fillets cool.

  4. Cut the fillets into small pieces.

  5. Cut the boiled eggs into small pieces.

  6. Mix the fish, eggs, Cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice together.

Make the pie

  1. Make a flaky pastry with the flour and salt.

  2. Roll the pastry into a square.

  3. Trim the edges of the pastry.

  4. Wet the corners of the pastry.

  5. Place the fish mixture in the center of the pastry.

  6. Bring the corners of the pastry to the center, overlapping them.

  7. Brush the pastry with beaten egg, avoiding the edges.

  8. Place the pie on a flat baking sheet.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

  2. Serve hot on a dish with a folded napkin, garnished with parsley or curled cress.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Forms the flaky pastry that encloses the filling and holds its shape.
Sole fillets
Provide the flaky fish filling that cooks through inside the pastry.
Boiled eggs
Add body and richness to the fish filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the fish.

The step that matters

Half cook the fillets. Fish cooks quickly, so partial cooking before it is wrapped in pastry prevents it from becoming overcooked and dry while the pastry bakes through.

“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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