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Baked Fish Rolls

A pastry-wrapped fish filling baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked Fish Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir in the milk, cooking until boiling.

  3. Add the fish, anchovy essence, and seasonings.

Shape the rolls

  1. Roll out the potato pastry and cut it into 4-inch squares.

  2. Place a small amount of the fish mixture on each square.

  3. Brush the edges with egg, fold them over, and pinch to seal.

  4. Brush the tops with egg and place on a greased baking tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

  2. Serve very hot.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potato pastry
Forms the golden, crisp wrapper that encloses the filling.
Cooked fish
Provides the main filling, giving the rolls their savoury body.
Flour
Cooked with the butter and milk to thicken the filling into a binding sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and starts the flour-thickened sauce.
Milk
Combines with the flour and butter to form a smooth, thickened binder.
Egg (in the method)
Brushed on the edges to seal and on the tops to promote browning.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. If the edges are not brushed with egg and pinched firmly, the pastry may not hold together, and the filling can leak out during baking.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, fish, milk, flour, butter, anchovy, 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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