Skip to main content
Main

Baked Fish Rolls

Baked fish rolls are pastry squares filled with fish and seasonings, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked Fish Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir in the milk, cooking until boiling.

  2. Add the fish, anchovy essence, and seasonings.

Shape the rolls

  1. Roll out the potato pastry and cut it into 4‑inch squares.

  2. Place a little of the fish mixture on each square.

  3. Brush the edges with egg, fold them together, and pinch to seal.

Bake and serve

  1. Brush the tops with egg and place on a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

  3. Serve very 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potato pastry
Forms the golden, flaky wrapper that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a binding sauce that holds the fish filling together.
Milk
Makes the flour thickening a smooth, creamy sauce that keeps the filling moist.
Cooked fish
Provides the main filling, bound into the sauce so it stays moist inside the pastry.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base of the filling sauce.

The step that matters

Pinching the edges to seal. If the edges are not brushed with egg and pressed firmly, the pastry can fail to stick, letting the moist fish filling leak out during baking.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, fish, milk, flour, butter, anchovy, 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.

You might also like

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