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Fish Pies

A baked dish of fish and seafood with a buttery base and seasoned gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Fish Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Simmer fish pieces in a small quantity of liquid for a few minutes.

  2. Place butter at the bottom of a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer raw fish pieces, forcemeat balls, or chopped seafood in the dish.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, cayenne, nutmeg, or curry powder.

  3. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours without a side crust.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Prepare gravy by boiling fish trimmings with a little flour and butter.

  2. Add cream or white wine or lemon juice to the gravy and 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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the pie and provides its flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the gravy become smooth and savoury.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the fish rather than running thin.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the gravy, softening its flavour.

The step that matters

Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours without a side crust. A long, gentle bake lets the fish cook through and the flavours meld, while leaving the sides open lets the surface reduce and the gravy concentrate. Overbaking dries the fish, so watch closely near the end of the time.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, lobster, pepper, cream, flour):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, lobster, pepper, cream, flour. 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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