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Scalloped Whitefish

A baked dish of whitefish topped with a milk, flour, egg, butter dressing and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Scalloped Whitefish

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.

Prepare the fish

  1. Steam the whitefish until tender.

  2. Remove the bones and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and whisk in the flour until thickened.

  2. Allow the milk mixture to cool.

  3. Stir in the eggs and butter until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and dressing, seasoning with onion juice.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Whitefish
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the flaky protein layer.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that moistens the fish.
Flour
Thickens the warm milk into a smooth sauce.
Eggs
Bind the sauce and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, improving flavor and mouthfeel of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cool the milk mixture before adding the eggs. Eggs scramble or curdle when added to very hot liquid. Letting the thickened milk cool first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly in the oven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whitefish, pepper, milk, flour, egg, butter, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whitefish, pepper, milk, flour, egg, butter, bread. 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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