Skip to main content
Main

Fish Macaroni

A baked dish of cooked fish, macaroni, cheese, and a milk‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the fish and break it into flakes.

  2. Boil about 1 quart of water, wash the macaroni, and break it into short pieces.

  3. Add the macaroni to the boiling water with a little salt and boil until tender, about 20 minutes; then strain off the water.

Make the sauce

  1. Blend the flour smoothly with a little milk, then add the rest of the milk to a saucepan.

  2. Pour the flour mixture into the milk, stir well until it boils, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Stir in the fish and macaroni, warm it up, then pour it onto a greased flat dish or soup plate.

Brown and serve

  1. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and brown it under a broiler or with a hot poker.

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. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Fish
Provides the main protein and flaky body of the dish.
Macaroni
Adds starch and bulk, giving the dish its substantial, chewy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds creaminess.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the fish and macaroni.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Blending the flour with milk before heating. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because its starch granules hydrate unevenly. Mixing it smoothly with a little cold milk first lets the starch disperse, so the sauce thickens evenly once it boils.

“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

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipes