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Fish Rechauffe

A creamy, buttered fish dish topped with bread crumbs and browned under a broiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fish Rechauffe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Pick the fish from the bone in large flakes.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  3. Add the cream, a little flour, and salt to the melted butter, stirring until combined.

Combine and bake

  1. Add the fish to the mixture and heat thoroughly.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a serving dish and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Baste with butter until moist, then brown under a broiler or in a Dutch oven.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon, cod, or sole
Provides the main body and flaky texture of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the topping brown.
Cream
Forms the moist, smooth sauce that coats the fish.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter so the sauce holds together.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when browned.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce before adding the fish. Flour must be stirred into the melted butter and cream until smooth and fully combined so it thickens evenly; lumps or uncooked flour leave a pasty, floury taste in the sauce.

“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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