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Tench Pie

A baked pie filled with tench fish, butter, claret, and spices, topped with crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tench Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pie

  1. Butter a pie dish and line the edges with pie crust.

  2. Place the tench in the dish, season with salt, pepper, and grate nutmeg over it.

  3. Add small lumps of butter on top and pour claret and water over the fish.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover the dish with crust and bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Prepare a nicely-seasoned strong gravy and pour it in through the hole at the top when the pie is done.

Variation

  1. For a variation, layer tench and eels with seasoning and anchovy between layers.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Tench
Forms the main filling, providing the flesh that cooks through in the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out as it bakes.
Claret
Adds acidity and flavour, and moistens the fish under the crust.
Pie crust
Encloses the fish, trapping steam so the filling cooks gently and stays moist.

The step that matters

Covering and baking in a hot oven. A well-heated oven sets the crust quickly and traps steam around the fish, so the flesh cooks through without drying. Pouring the gravy in only after baking keeps it from thinning the filling and softening the crust.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, 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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