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Halibut Timbales with Shrimp Sauce

Halibut timbales are baked fish cakes served with shrimp sauce and garnished with shrimp and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Halibut Timbales with Shrimp Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop or pound the halibut very fine, then rub it through a puree sieve.

  2. Add the cream, melted butter, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne to the halibut and mix thoroughly.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered half-pint charlotte mold and six or eight small molds.

  2. Cover the molds with buttered paper and set them in a pan of hot water.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until the centers are firm.

  4. Turn the timbales out onto a hot platter and serve with shrimp sauce, garnished with whole shrimps and parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Provides the main body and flavor of the timbales once cooked and set.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they set on baking and give the timbales a light, airy structure.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture tender rather than dry.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until the centers are firm. Gentle, indirect heat from the hot water keeps the delicate egg-and-fish custard from curdling or over-browning. Underbaking leaves the center loose, while overbaking makes it rubbery and dry.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, lemon, pepper, egg, shrimp):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, lemon, pepper, egg, shrimp. 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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