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Fish Pies

A savory pie made with various fish, seafood, and a creamy gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Fish Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Simmer fish pieces in a small quantity of liquor for a few minutes.

  2. Place a bit of butter at the bottom of a pie dish.

  3. Layer raw fish pieces, forcemeat balls, or chopped seafood in the dish.

  4. Add seasoning and a little of the liquor from the seafood.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  2. Prepare gravy by boiling fish trimmings with flour and butter, then add cream or white wine.

  3. Pour the hot gravy into the pie after baking.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the pie and sets into flakes as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the fish moist in the dish.
Flour
Thickens the boiled fish trimmings into a smooth gravy.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Baking the layered fish. Fish is raw when layered and cooks through over a long bake, so it can dry out or overcook. The added liquor and butter help keep it moist while the proteins set.

“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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