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Fish Pie

A savory pie made with fresh fish, parsley, breadcrumbs, and gravy, topped with pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Wash, dry, and cut the fish into nice pieces.

  2. Stew the fish in a little cold water with salt to make gravy.

Assemble

  1. Layer the fish in a pie dish, sprinkling each layer with salt, pepper, parsley, and browned crumbs.

  2. Pour the gravy over the fish and let it cool.

Bake

  1. Cover with pastry and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Forms the main body of the filling and provides the flavor of the pie.
Browned bread crumbs
Add a toasted flavor and help absorb liquid in the layers.
Short or flaky pastry
Forms a crisp, golden top crust that seals in the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the gravy over the fish and let it cool. The gravy should be cool enough not to melt or soften the pastry before baking. Cooling also helps the filling set so it holds its shape when cut.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, 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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