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Cassolettes of Fish, Shrimps, Etc

Small potato cakes filled with shrimp or fish and lemon-flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cassolettes of Fish, Shrimps, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cases

  1. Divide the potato pastry into 8 portions, shape into balls, and flatten slightly.

  2. Coat each ball with egg and breadcrumbs, then smooth the coated balls with a knife.

  3. Coat again with breadcrumbs.

  4. Mark a ring on top of each ball with a small cutter.

  5. Fry the balls in hot oil until golden.

  6. Remove the tops from the fried balls and scoop out some potato from each ball.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk until the mixture boils.

  4. Add the shrimps, lemon juice, and seasonings to the sauce.

  5. Heat the sauce through.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the potato cases with the shrimp sauce.

  2. Replace the tops on the filled cases.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Shrimp + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

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

  4. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  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

Potato pastry
Forms the crisp golden case that holds the filling.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flavour of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils.
Shrimps
Provide the main seafood flavour and texture of the filling.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it sets and browns when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in hot oil until golden. If the oil is not hot enough, the coated balls absorb oil and turn greasy, while the breadcrumbs may not set into an even crust before the potato inside is heated through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, butter, flour, lemon, potato, egg, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, butter, flour, lemon, potato, egg, pepper. 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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