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Fish Pudding

A baked dish of finely chopped cold fish in a thickened milk mixture, seasoned with pepper, butter, and sea salt, topped with crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

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

  1. Remove all bones from the cold fish and chop it into fine bits.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, thicken the milk with flour mixed into a batter with cold milk.

  2. Stir the chopped fish into the thickened milk mixture.

  3. Season with pepper, butter, and coarse sea salt.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and cover the top with cracker or bread crumbs.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is nicely browned.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable base that holds the fish together.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that thickens with flour and sets around the fish.
Cold fish
Provides the main protein and flavour of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a softer texture and flavour.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden top through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with the flour batter. Flour must be mixed smoothly into cold milk before heating, because starch added directly to hot liquid clumps. Once the starch gelatinizes with heat, it thickens the milk evenly into the base that holds the fish.

“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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