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Fish Custard

A baked or steamed custard made with fish, egg, milk, butter, parsley, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a pie dish.

  2. Place the fish loosely in the dish.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and parsley.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg and add the milk.

  2. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the fish.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes, or steam for 40 minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets the milk mixture into a custard that holds the fish together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, keeping the fish moist as it cooks.
Haddock or cold cooked fish
Forms the main body of the dish, held in place by the set custard.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and milk mixture over the fish. Egg proteins set gently with heat, so the custard stays smooth and tender only when the oven or steam is moderate. Too much heat makes the egg curdle and turn grainy and watery.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, egg, milk, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, egg, milk, 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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