Name: Flaked Fish
Ingredients: ½ cup hot butter; ½ pound cold fish, flaked; 1 ounce cold butter; 2 teaspoons anchovy sauce; 2 teaspoons mixed mustard; 1 cup cream; salt to taste; pepper to taste; bread crumbs

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Flaked Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fish mixture

Melt the hot butter in a stew pan.
Add the flaked cold fish and cold butter.
Stir in the anchovy sauce, mixed mustard, cream, salt, and pepper.
Heat the mixture until hot.

Serve

Serve topped with bread crumbs.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together637 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish: Provides the main body and flavor of the dish.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and gives the mixture a smooth texture.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, giving the mixture a softer, creamier texture when heated.
Anchovy sauce: Adds savory, salty depth to the mixture.
Mixed mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the butter and cream.

Swap the mustard

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Tomatofits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, fish, anchovy, sauce, cream, pepper, bread. 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.