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A Nice Way to Dress and Bake Fish

A baked fish dish with a creamy milk‑butter sauce, parsley, onion, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Nice Way to Dress and Bake Fish

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 the fish

  1. Boil the fish until done, then remove the bones and sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and flour, then add to the heated milk.

  3. Boil the mixture until thick, then let it cool.

  4. Stir in the eggs, parsley, and onion into the cooled mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and sauce alternately until filled.

  2. Cover the top with stale bread crumbs and small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

White fish or haddock
Forms the flaky main body of the dish, becoming tender when cooked and baked.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce when cooked with butter and heated liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, enriching the sauce and helping the topping brown.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils.
Eggs
Stirred into the cooled sauce to help bind and set it during baking.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick, then let it cool.. The flour must be fully cooked in the boiling milk to thicken properly, since raw flour tastes pasty and thickens poorly. Cooling before adding the eggs keeps the heat from scrambling them.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, flour, butter, parsley, pepper, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, flour, butter, parsley, pepper, egg. 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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