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Fish Pie with Macaroni

A baked fish pie layered with macaroni and topped with buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Pie with Macaroni

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 macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into small pieces.

  2. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni, then rinse the macaroni with cold water.

Assemble the pie

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Arrange macaroni and fish in alternate layers.

  3. Sprinkle the layers with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Pour white sauce over the layers.

  5. Cover the pie with buttered crumbs.

Bake

  1. Brown the pie in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

  3. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Macaroni
Provides the starchy body that holds the pie together as it cooks.
Fish
Supplies the main flavour and protein, layered through the macaroni.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy binding that keeps the layers from drying out.
Buttered crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish and sauce.

The step that matters

Rinse the macaroni after draining. Rinsing with cold water stops the cooking so the pasta does not keep softening and turn mushy while it bakes in the pie.

“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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