Skip to main content
Main

Fish Pudding

A baked pudding made with cooked fish, potatoes, butter, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Pudding

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 the mold

  1. Butter a plain pudding mold.

  2. Sprinkle the mold with brown crumbs.

  3. Boil the mold for 2 minutes.

Make the mixture

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish and chop it into small pieces.

  2. Rub the potatoes through a sieve.

  3. Melt the butter, add the fish and potatoes, and heat through.

  4. Stir in the water, Plasmon powder, parsley, and eggs; mix well and season to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the prepared mold, shake it down, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  2. Turn out onto a hot dish and serve.

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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked white fish
Forms the main body of the pudding and gives it its flavour.
Cooked potatoes
Adds softness and moisture, giving the pudding a light, tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the pudding taste rich and stay moist.
Plasmon powder
Adds protein and body, helping the mixture hold together when baked.
Whole egg
Binds the mixture and sets during baking to give structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the pudding, giving a smoother set.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, parsley, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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.

More fish pudding recipes

Scandinavian 4 See all 95 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes