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Baked Haddocks

Baked haddocks stuffed with breadcrumbs, parsley, onion, butter, pepper, and salt, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Haddocks

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 fish

  1. Gut and clean the haddocks, then soak them in salt overnight.

  2. The next day, skin the haddocks and remove the heads, tails, and fins.

Stuff and coat

  1. Stuff the haddocks with a mixture of bread crumbs, parsley, onion, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Rub the outside of the haddocks with butter and roll them in bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) or place in a Dutch oven before the fire.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddocks
Provide the flaky white fish that forms the main body of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside and absorb juices inside the stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the outside brown as it bakes.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory flavor to the stuffing as it softens.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Soak the haddocks in salt overnight. Salt draws out moisture and seasons the flesh through osmosis, while too long a soak can make the fish firm and overly salty. Rinse and dry the fish before stuffing so the coating adheres and the fish cooks evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, bread, parsley, butter, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, parsley, butter, 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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