Name: Fish Pie
Ingredients: 1 large rock fish; 3 eggs; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon flour; milk (as needed); coarse sea salt (to taste); black pepper (to taste); pastry for the pie crust

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 Pie

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.

Prepare the filling

Boil the large rock fish until cooked, then remove the flesh from the bones.
In a bowl, combine the fish, eggs, butter, flour, and enough milk to create a batter.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs: Bind the filling and help it set firm in the oven.
Flour: Thickens the batter so it holds together rather than running loose.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Milk: Loosens the mixture into a batter and keeps the filling moist.
Rock fish: Provides the main protein and flavor of the pie filling.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown. The batter must be set through and browned without drying out. Eggs firm as they heat, so overbaking makes the filling tough and dry, while underbaking leaves it loose in the center.

“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.