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Dressed Fish

A fish dish prepared with cream, mustard, anchovy essence, ketchup, pepper, salt, butter, flour, and bread crumbs, browned under a salamander.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dressed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fish from the bones in small pieces.

  2. Mix the fish with cream, essence of anchovies, ketchup, pepper, and salt.

  3. Rub flour into butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the mixture in a stewpan until hot.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a serving dish.

  3. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  4. Brown under a salamander.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the fish mixture soft and creamy when heated.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the crumbs brown when the dish is finished.
Flour
Rubbed into butter, it thickens the mixture slightly so it holds together.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when browned under heat.

The step that matters

Brown under a salamander. The topping needs direct high heat to brown quickly; leaving it too long dries the fish and can scorch the crumbs before the surface is evenly golden.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, ketchup, pepper, butter, flour, bread. 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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