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Russian Fish Pie

A baked fish pie made with a butter‑flour crust, cod, rice, curry powder, and salt.

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

Russian Fish Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the paste

  1. Chop the butter into the flour.

  2. Add baking powder and enough water to form a paste.

  3. Roll out the paste into a long piece, fold into thirds, turn half round, and roll again.

  4. Roll the paste to about 8 inches wide and 14 inches long.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cut one end like an envelope flap and place the paste on a greased baking sheet.

  2. Break the fish into flakes and place in the center of the paste.

  3. Top with rice, salt, curry powder, and small bits of butter.

  4. Fold the ends of the paste over the filling to resemble a large envelope.

  5. Wet the edges to seal and decorate the paste.

Bake

  1. Brush with beaten egg and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

  4. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  5. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that encloses the filling.
Butter
Chopped into the flour to add richness and tenderness to the paste.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the paste rises and becomes lighter.
Cod or other fish
Forms the main filling, cooked gently inside the sealed paste.
Boiled rice
Adds bulk and soaks up moisture from the fish in the filling.

The step that matters

Sealing the envelope. If the edges are not wet and pressed firmly, steam and juices can escape during baking and the filling may leak or dry out.

“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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