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Fish, Scalloped

A dish of cold fish coated with egg, milk, flour, anchovy sauce, pepper, salt, bread crumbs, and butter, then browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish, Scalloped

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the fish carefully from the bones and moisten with milk and the egg.

  2. Add the other ingredients and place in a deep dish or scallop shells.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with bread crumbs, butter the top, and brown before the fire.

  2. When hot, serve.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, flaked into tender pieces.
Egg
Binds the flaked fish together and helps the mixture set when heated.
Milk
Adds moisture so the fish stays tender rather than dry.
Flour
Thickens the moist mixture so it holds together in the dish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns on the surface.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the topping brown and gives richness.

The step that matters

Brown the top before the fire. The topping needs enough direct heat to brown without drying the fish beneath. Buttering the crumbs promotes even browning, and removing the dish once the top is golden keeps the interior moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, milk, flour, anchovy, sauce, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, milk, flour, anchovy, sauce, 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.

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