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Salt-fish Pie

A baked pie made with salted fish, potatoes, butter, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Salt-fish Pie

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.

Prepare

  1. Break the fish into flakes and mash the potatoes.

  2. Butter a pie dish and layer half of the mashed potatoes in the bottom.

Assemble

  1. Add a layer of fish, sprinkle with pepper and small pieces of butter, then repeat layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with potatoes on top.

  2. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk, then pour this mixture over the layered fish and potatoes.

  3. Dot the top with remaining butter and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until heated through and golden.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt fish
Provides the main savory flavor and flaky filling of the pie.
Potatoes
Form the starchy layers that give the pie body and soft texture.
Egg
Helps the milk mixture set into a custard that binds the layers.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the custard that soaks through the layers.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pouring the egg and milk mixture over the layers. The custard needs to reach every layer evenly. Egg proteins set as the pie heats, so pouring it evenly and baking until heated through helps the pie hold together when sliced.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, butter, milk, pepper):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, butter, milk, pepper. 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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