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Fish Baked in Milk

Fish baked in milk with flour, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Baked in Milk

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Clean and wipe the fish.

  2. Place the fish in a deep dish with the milk.

  3. Cover the dish.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with a little cold milk.

  2. Pour the hot milk onto the flour mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the fish from the oven.

  2. Let the sauce boil.

  3. Add the parsley and butter.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Pour the sauce over the fish before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Haddock or cod
Provides the main protein, which firms up and flakes as it cooks.
Milk
Gently cooks the fish and becomes the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Butter
Adds fat, richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with cold milk before adding the hot milk. Mixing flour into cold liquid first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps when the hot milk is added. Letting it boil then fully cooks the starch and thickens the sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, butter, flour, milk, 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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