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Fish Pie

A baked haddock pie with milk, butter, flour, egg yolks, bread crumbs, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 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

  1. Boil the haddock and remove the best part of the fish.

  2. In a bowl, combine the milk, butter, flour, and egg yolks; mix well.

  3. Add the fish to the mixture and stir to combine.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and grated cheese.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

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. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the main body of the pie and provides its flaky texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture so it binds around the fish.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the filling as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, carrying flavour and smoothness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a creamy sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Combining the sauce base before adding the fish. Mixing the milk, butter, flour and egg yolks well keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than forming lumps that would not bind 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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