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Fish Rechauffe

Fish Rechaud is a creamy fish dish with mustard, anchovy essence, catsup, Harvey sauce, and bread crumbs, served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 Rechauffe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the bones from the fish and break the fish into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the fish, cream, mustard, anchovy essence, catsup, Harvey sauce, flour, salt, and pepper, then heat the mixture until hot.

Top and brown

  1. Transfer the mixture to a serving dish, sprinkle it with bread crumbs, and baste it with butter until moist.

  2. Brown the mixture under a salamander or in a Dutch oven.

  3. Serve with a wall of mashed potatoes around the dish for an improvement.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 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 main body of the dish, providing the flaked texture and protein base.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, helping the mixture stay soft and saucy when heated.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it clings to the fish rather than running thin.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cream and fish.
Anchovy essence
Contributes a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp top that browns under heat, contrasting with the soft filling.

The step that matters

Browning the topping. Bread crumbs and butter brown through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation at high heat. If the mixture is not basted enough it can dry out and scorch before the crumbs colour evenly, so the surface should be watched closely while it browns.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, anchovy, sauce, flour, pepper, butter. 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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