Name: Dried Fish Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup dried fish, boiled, skinned, and deboned; 1 cup mashed potatoes; ½ cup milk; 2 tablespoons butter; Additional butter for topping

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 ↓

Dried Fish Pudding

Ingredients

1 cup dried fish, boiled, skinned, and deboned
1 cup mashed potatoes
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
Additional butter for topping

Directions

Prepare the fish

Boil the fish, then remove the skin and bones.

Make the pudding

Pound the fish and mix it with the mashed potatoes, milk, and butter.
Transfer the mixture to a dish and smooth the top with a knife.
Dot the surface with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

Brown the dish in a Dutch oven.
Serve with egg sauce.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 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

Dried fish: Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the pudding.
Mashed potatoes: Adds body and a soft, moist texture that holds the pudding together.
Milk: Adds moisture and softness to the mixture.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown.

“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.