Name: Fish Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb white fish or cold boiled fish; ½ lb breadcrumbs; a little anchovy sauce; cayenne pepper; 2 eggs; ½ lb suet; a little fish stock or milk

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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the flesh from the bones of the fish and flake it if using cold fish.
Combine the fish with breadcrumbs and finely chopped suet in a bowl.
Add anchovy sauce and cayenne pepper to the mixture.
Mix in the fish stock or milk.

Steam and serve

Transfer the mixture to a buttered dish and steam for 1 hour.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together637 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish: Forms the body of the pudding and provides its main flavour.
Breadcrumbs: Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, binding structure.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Fish stock or milk: Adds moisture so the mixture holds together softly rather than drying out.

“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.