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Fish Parvot

A baked casserole of canned salmon, biscuits, and breadcrumbs, topped with butter and flour sauce.

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 ↓

Fish Parvot

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 sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour over medium heat until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring continuously until the mixture thickens.

Assemble

  1. Butter the bottom of a quart granite pan lightly.

  2. Layer half of the roll biscuits in the pan, followed by half of the salmon and half of the drawn butter.

  3. Repeat the layers with the remaining biscuits, salmon, and drawn butter.

  4. Top with a layer of breadcrumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown and 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. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Red salmon
Provides the main protein and flaky texture of the casserole.
Flour
Its starch thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and moistens the layers.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the layers together.
Roll biscuits
Soak up the sauce and give the casserole a soft, starchy body.
Breadcrumbs
Form a top layer that browns in the oven for a crisp finish.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk gradually. Pouring the milk in slowly while stirring keeps the flour and butter mixture smooth. Flour starch swells and thickens as it heats with liquid, so lumps form if the milk goes in too fast.

“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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