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Tench Pie

A baked pie with tench fish, butter, spices, red wine, water, and rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tench Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with butter.

  3. Grate nutmeg over the butter, then add pepper, salt, and mace.

  4. Lay the tench fish in the dish and cover with more butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour in red wine and a little water.

  2. Cover with a lid and bake until done.

  3. After baking, add melted butter mixed with rich gravy on top.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Tench fish
Forms the main body of the pie and provides the flesh that cooks through in the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, coating the fish so it stays moist during baking.
Red wine
Adds acidity and moisture, helping to flavour and tenderise the fish as it bakes.
Rich gravy
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the finished pie when spooned over the top.

The step that matters

Cover with a lid and bake until done. The lid traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own juices and wine. Baking too long dries the flesh, while too little leaves it undercooked, so check that it flakes easily.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, pepper, fish, red wine):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, pepper, fish, red wine. 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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