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Fish Pie with Macaroni

A baked fish pie with macaroni, white sauce, lemon, and buttered crumbs topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Pie with Macaroni

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cook the macaroni according to package instructions and drain.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the flaked fish, cooked macaroni, white sauce, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and top with buttered crumbs.

  3. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the top is golden 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cooked fish
Provides the main protein and flavour of the pie.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and a starchy body that holds the filling together.
White sauce
Binds the fish and pasta and keeps the filling moist during baking.
Buttered crumbs
Forms a crisp top and browns in the oven through fat and heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the fish.

The step that matters

Baking until the top is golden brown. Baking long enough lets the buttered crumbs brown through Maillard browning and the filling heat through, while overbaking can dry the sauce and toughen the fish.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, fish, sauce. 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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