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Baking

Scolloped Fish

A baked fish dish topped with butter, bread crumbs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scolloped Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a baking dish with butter.

Assemble

  1. Layer the fish in the dish.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour milk over the fish.

  4. Top with bread crumbs and dot with butter.

Bake

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden and bubbly.

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. Butter + breadtop 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. Fish + breadtop 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. Fish + buttertop 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender as it bakes in the milk.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft fish beneath.
Milk
Moistens the fish as it cooks and forms a creamy, lightly set sauce.

The step that matters

Bake until golden and bubbly. Baking long enough lets the milk heat through and thicken slightly while the crumbs brown. Underbaking leaves the fish and sauce runny, while overbaking can dry the fish.

“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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