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Fish Scallop

A baked fish dish with cream, anchovy sauce, mustard, walnut ketchup, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Scallop

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. Flake the cold fish and remove any bones.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the fish, cream, anchovy sauce, mustard, walnut ketchup, pepper, and salt.

  3. Heat the mixture on the stove until nearly hot, stirring occasionally.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a deep dish and top with bread crumbs and small bits of butter.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the main body of the dish, giving it substance and flavor.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the fish tender during heating and baking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the topping brown and gives a rich finish.
Anchovy sauce
Contributes salty, savory depth to the fish mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture until nearly hot. Warming the fish and cream gently, stirring often, keeps the cream from scorching or curdling and prevents the fish from toughening before it goes into the oven.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, cream, anchovy, sauce, mustard, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, anchovy, sauce, mustard, ketchup, pepper. 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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