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Deviled Fish

A baked fish mixture of minced cooked fish, egg yolks, butter, flour, milk, parsley, and seasonings topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Deviled 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.

Make the sauce

  1. Mince the cooked fish coarsely.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.

Assemble and bake

  1. Remove from heat and mix in the minced fish, finely mashed egg yolks, parsley, and seasonings.

  2. Butter a baking dish or scallop shells, then fill with the fish mixture.

  3. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top and brown in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the fish together.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour so it cooks into the sauce without lumps.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the creamy binding sauce.
Egg yolks
Mashed into the mixture to enrich the sauce and add a creamy texture.
Cooked fish
Provides the main flavour and bulk of the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux. Adding milk gradually while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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