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Fish Pudding

A steamed fish and egg pudding made with bread crumbs, butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour boiling milk over the mixture and let it soak for a few minutes.

  3. Add the flaked fish and beaten eggs, mixing well.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased basin or mold and cover with buttered paper or a lid.

  2. Place the basin in a pan of boiling water, ensuring the water comes halfway up the sides.

  3. Steam for 35 minutes, adding more boiling water as 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and give the pudding a soft, light body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the crumb and fish mixture.
Boiling milk
Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture to the mixture.
Cooked fish
Provides the main flavour and bulk of the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam gently in a water bath. Eggs set best at a gentle simmer; boiling vigorously or letting the water run low can make the pudding rough, holey, or dry. Keeping the water halfway up the basin and topping it up maintains even, moist heat.

“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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