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Fish Pie

A savory pie made with cooked fish, potatoes, butter, parsley, mace, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 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.

Prepare

  1. Break the fish into flakes.

  2. Mash the potatoes with a little milk and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Season the fish and place it in a pie dish with parsley, mace, and melted butter.

  2. Pile the mashed potatoes on top, mark with a fork, and bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it flaky texture.
Cooked potatoes
Make the mashed topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps keep the filling moist.
Milk
Moistens the mashed potatoes so they spread smoothly over the fish.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the fish filling.

The step that matters

Baking the potato topping until brown. Marking the mashed potatoes with a fork creates ridges that brown well, and the surface needs enough time in the oven toColour. Stopping too early leaves the topping pale and the filling underheated, while baking too long can dry the potatoes out.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, potato, pepper, parsley, milk. 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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