Name: Fish a LA Créme
Ingredients: 3 cups cold flaked fish (cod, haddock, halibut, or cusk); 1 slice onion; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 cup White Sauce; ½ cup buttered cracker crumbs; Bit of bay leaf; Sprig of parsley

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish a LA Créme

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sauce

Scald milk for the white sauce with bay leaf, parsley, and onion.

Layer and bake

Cover the bottom of a small buttered platter with half of the fish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and pour over half of the sauce.
Repeat the layers with the remaining fish and sauce.
Cover with cracker crumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crumbs are brown.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together2,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Fish + oniontop 19% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together1,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold flaked fish: Forms the main body of the dish, soft and tender once baked in the sauce.
White sauce: Provides moisture and a creamy binding that keeps the fish from drying out.
Cracker crumbs: Forms a crisp, browned topping through baking.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, sauce, parsley):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Carrotbetter flavor fit
Shallotbetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, sauce, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.