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Raised Fish Pie

A baked fish pie with seer fish, whiting, pomfret or bectie, forcemeat, and reduced fish broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and whiting work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Raised Fish Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the seer fish and slice it.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and white pepper, then refrigerate.

  3. Make a forcemeat with the whiting, pomfret, or bectie as directed.

  4. Use the fish bones to make a strong fish broth, moistening with Chablis and water. Boil down until reduced to ½ pint.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a raised pie mold with paste No. 3.

  2. Coat the inside with forcemeat.

  3. Pack the mold with layers of seer fish slices and forcemeat.

  4. Cover with forcemeat and place the top on.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C) until the pie is nicely colored.

  6. Cool for 15 minutes.

  7. Pour in the reduced fish broth and refrigerate until needed.

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. Fish + whitingtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + white peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Whiting + white peppertop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Seer fish
Forms the main body of the pie, giving it its substance and flaky, tender bite.
Whiting, pomfret, or bectie
Used to make the forcemeat, which binds and moistens the layers around the fish.
Chablis
Adds acidity and aroma to the fish broth used to moisten the pie.

The step that matters

Boil down the fish broth to ½ pint. The broth must be reduced to concentrate its flavor and body; if it stays thin, it will make the pie soggy when poured in.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, whiting):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, whiting. 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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