Name: Fish Pies
Ingredients: fish fillets; eel (optional); gudgeons (optional); puff pastry; salt; veal broth (optional); cream (optional)

Why it works: Fish and veal work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 230 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Fish Pies

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.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut the fish into fillets and season them.
If using, add eel and gudgeons to the fillets for richness.
Place the seasoned fillets in puff pastry and seal.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.
For sauce, use fish bones or veal broth with cream if desired.

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.

Fish + vealtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together230 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Fish + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together937 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,202 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).