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Scalloped Fish and Potato

A baked casserole of fish topped with mashed potatoes and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Scalloped Fish and Potato

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. Combine milk, fat, corn starch, salt, pepper, parsley, and onion in a saucepan over medium heat to make a sauce.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the sauce to the cooked fish and mix well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and cover with mashed potato.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the top is brown.

Serve

  1. Garnish with hard-cooked egg and additional chopped parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the filling and provides the savory base of the dish.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the fish together.
Skimmed milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a creamy texture.
Mashed potato
Forms a topping that becomes golden brown and sets over the baked filling.
Fat
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps it feel smooth.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Corn starch must be heated in the milk until it thickens, because unheated or undercooked starch leaves a thin, raw-tasting sauce. Stir steadily over medium heat so lumps do not form.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, potato, milk, parsley, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, potato, milk, parsley, corn. 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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