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Timbales of Whiting

A steamed fish dish made with whiting, butter, milk, flour, eggs, and seasonings, served with white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Timbales of Whiting

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the fish from the bones and pass it through a wire sieve.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. Mix the melted butter with the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the milk.

  4. Cook the mixture well.

Mix and steam

  1. Incorporate the whiting, eggs, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Pour the mixture into well-greased dariole molds.

  3. Cover the molds with greased paper.

  4. Steam for 20 minutes.

  5. Turn out the timbales.

  6. Serve with white 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Provides the delicate fish body that forms the main structure of the timbales.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the fish and custard into a firm, sliceable mass.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the base a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth base that holds the fish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that, once thickened, gives the timbales their moist, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture well. The flour must be fully cooked into the butter and milk; undercooked starch tastes raw and gives a weak, pasty thickening, which affects the final texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, butter, milk, lemon, egg, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, butter, milk, lemon, egg, flour. 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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