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Fish Au Gratin

A baked fish dish with butter sauce, cheese, cayenne, breadcrumbs, and garnished with eggs and tomatoes or potatoes.

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 Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and bones from the cold boiled fish and separate the flakes carefully.

  2. Thickly butter a baking dish.

Assemble

  1. Layer the fish with rich butter sauce.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with grated cheese and a little cayenne.

  3. Top with brown bread crumbs.

  4. Place pats of butter over the crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Heat in the oven until thoroughly warmed.

  2. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes.

  3. Create a border with potatoes.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled fish
Forms the main body of the dish, with flakes that hold the layers together.
Rich butter sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the fish does not dry out in the oven.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and adds savoury flavour and a browned, golden surface.
Brown bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns under heat and protects the layers beneath.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a firm, rich texture and mild flavour as a garnish.

The step that matters

Heat in the oven until thoroughly warmed. Heating must be gentle and complete enough to warm the fish through without drying it. The fish is already cooked, so the goal is heating it evenly while the butter sauce keeps it moist and the crumbs brown lightly on top.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, sauce, cheese, pepper, bread, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, sauce, cheese, pepper, bread, egg. 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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