Skip to main content
Main

A Fish Pie

A baked pie with lobster, oysters, bread crumbs, butter, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lobster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

A Fish Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Line a dish with pastry.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer bread crumbs, lobster pieces, more bread crumbs, bearded oysters, and more bread crumbs in the dish.

  2. Repeat layers if necessary.

  3. Pour in the oyster liquor, essence of anchovy, gravy, and butter pieces.

  4. Cover with a crust.

  5. Bake gently in the oven.

  6. Just before serving, pour in warm cream and additional gravy.

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. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  4. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lobsters
Provides the main meat and sweet, delicate flavor of the filling.
Bearded oysters
Adds briny, savory flavor and moisture to the layered filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and keeping the filling moist.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs liquid from the oysters and butter, giving the filling body.
Warm cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the filling just before serving.

The step that matters

Bake gently in the oven. High heat can toughen lobster and oyster proteins and cause the liquid to boil off or split the butter. A low, gentle bake at 300°F cooks the seafood evenly while keeping it tender and juicy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lobster, bread, oyster, anchovy, butter, cream, nutmeg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, bread, oyster, anchovy, butter, cream, nutmeg. 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 pie recipes

Ling 12Salt 9Cod 8Sauce 4Tench and Eel 4with Tench and Eels 3 See all 121 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes