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Buttered Fish

A dish of flaked fish cooked in butter and eggs, served on toast and garnished with parsley and hard-boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Buttered Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the fish into small flakes and remove any bones.

  2. Whisk the eggs until very light and frothy.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the beaten eggs, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stir until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Add the fish and stir gently until it reaches a jelly-like consistency.

Serve

  1. Heap the mixture on the hot toast, garnish with parsley and/or hard boiled egg, 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken as they cook, binding the fish into a soft, spoonable mass.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the eggs cook smoothly and carrying flavour.
Milk
Dilutes the eggs and keeps the mixture tender and creamy rather than dry.
Cold cooked fish
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs gently over moderate heat until they just thicken. Egg proteins set quickly and turn grainy or rubbery if overheated or stirred too hard. Stopping at a soft, creamy stage keeps the mixture smooth and tender, so the fish is folded in gently at the end.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, butter, milk, 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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