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Bayoitet Pies

A savory fish pie made with soles, cod or turbot, leeks, salted pilchards, and topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and cream work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 127 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Bake the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Lay the forcemeat at the bottom of a dish.

  3. Place the fish on the forcemeat, seasoning it with salt and pepper.

  4. Pour gravy over the fish and bake.

Prepare the leeks

  1. Clean and skin the white part of the leeks, then scald them in milk and water.

  2. Layer the leeks in a dish with soaked salted pilchards between the layers.

Finish the pie

  1. Cover with puff pastry.

  2. After baking, lift the side crust with a knife and pour out the liquid.

  3. Pour in half a pint of scalded cream.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Turbot + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Turbot + leektop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Milk + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together29,395 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + leektop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).

  5. Leek + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together158 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Flesh of soles, small cod, or dressed turbot
Forms the main body of the pie, becoming flaky and tender as it bakes.
Large leeks
Add a soft, mild, sweet flavour and a tender texture to the layers.
Salted pilchards
Add a salty, savoury flavour that seasons the leek layers.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden crust that covers and seals the pie.
Scalded cream
Adds richness and moisture when poured in after baking.

Flavor stand-ins for the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, pepper, milk, cream):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, pepper, milk, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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