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Fish Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish 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.

  1. Clean and cut the fish into medium-sized pieces.

  2. Roll the fish in a mixture of parsley, thyme, shallots, beaten spices, mushroom or truffle powder, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the fish in a deep dish with light forcemeat around it.

  4. Cover with puff pastry, brush with beaten egg, and decorate the top with pastry leaves.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the fish is thoroughly cooked.

  6. About 15 minutes before serving, add good strong cullis and a little Madeira wine.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, thyme, shallot, mushroom, pepper, egg, madeira wine):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, thyme, shallot, mushroom, pepper, egg, madeira wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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