Name: Baked Haddock
Ingredients: 1 whole haddock, scaled and cleaned; Forcemeat (stuffing of your choice); 1 egg, beaten; ½ cup bread crumbs; Butter, for basting; Parsley, for garnish; Lemon, for garnish; Brown gravy, melted butter, or anchovy sauce, for serving

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Baked Haddock

Ingredients

1 whole haddock, scaled and cleaned
Forcemeat (stuffing of your choice)
1 egg, beaten
½ cup bread crumbs
Butter, for basting
Parsley, for garnish
Lemon, for garnish
Brown gravy, melted butter, or anchovy sauce, for serving

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

Stuff the cleaned haddock with forcemeat and sew up the slit.
Brush the fish with beaten egg and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes for a large haddock or 15 minutes for a moderate size.
Baste frequently with butter while baking.
Garnish with parsley and lemon before serving.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg: Binds the crumb coating so it adheres to the fish during baking.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden crust on the outside of the fish.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, moistening the fish and aiding browning as it bastes.
Forcemeat: Fills the cavity with a savory stuffing that flavors and moistens the fish from within.

“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.