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Fish Pudding

A baked dish of boiled fish and mashed potatoes with butter and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the layers

  1. Mash the potatoes well.

  2. Melt the butter or dripping with half the milk and stir into the potatoes.

  3. Break the fish into small pieces, ensuring there are no bones.

Assemble and bake

  1. Put the fish into a pie dish, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and add the remaining milk.

  2. Cover with the mashed potatoes and bake for 30 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled fish
Forms the main filling, providing flaky texture and savoury flavour.
Cold potatoes
Form the topping, giving body and a soft, creamy crust when baked.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat for richness and smooth texture in the mashed potato topping.
Milk
Adds moisture, keeping the potatoes and fish soft as they bake.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes well. Thorough mashing gives a smooth topping without lumps. Overworking cooked potato releases starch and can make it gluey, so mash just until smooth.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, 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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