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Fish Pie

A savory pie made with cold fish, fish sauce, potatoes, butter, milk, and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Pie

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 the filling

  1. Remove all skin and bones from the fish.

  2. Place the fish in a pie dish and sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  3. Mix the fish with the cold fish sauce.

Make the topping

  1. Sieve the cooked potatoes and melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the potatoes, seasonings, and enough milk to achieve a soft, creamy consistency.

  3. Beat the mixture well and pile it on top of the fish.

Bake

  1. Smooth the top with a knife and mark it neatly.

  2. Brush with egg or milk and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until nicely browned.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the main body of the pie filling.
Cooked potatoes
Form a soft, creamy topping that bakes to a golden crust.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the potato topping.
Milk
Adds moisture so the potato topping becomes soft and creamy.

The step that matters

Beat the potato topping until soft and creamy. Adding enough milk and beating thoroughly makes the potatoes smooth and spreadable. Lumps or a stiff mixture will not spread evenly over the fish or brown uniformly in the oven.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, fish sauce, pepper, butter, milk. 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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