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Haddock Pudding

A baked haddock and potato pudding with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddock Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish and potatoes

  1. Boil the haddock in water with a little salt and vinegar for 10-15 minutes.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from the haddock.

  3. Cut the fish into small pieces.

  4. Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft.

  5. Sieve the boiled potatoes.

Shape and bake the pudding

  1. Mix the sieved potatoes with the fish, raw egg, butter, pepper, and salt until well combined.

  2. Shape the mixture as desired.

  3. Place the shaped mixture in a buttered tin.

  4. Bake the tin until golden.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt butter and flour in a saucepan over heat.

  2. Gradually add the water from the haddock and milk, stirring for 10 minutes.

  3. Add diced hard-boiled eggs and lemon juice to the sauce.

  4. Pour the sauce around the fish pudding 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.

  1. Haddock + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Haddock
Forms the main body of the pudding and gives it its flavor.
Potatoes
Add starch and softness, helping the mixture hold together and stay moist.
Raw egg
Binds the fish and potato mixture so it holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to both the pudding and the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Milk
Mixed with the fish water to make a creamy, smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the fish water and milk to the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour smooth, so the sauce thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, vinegar, egg, butter, pepper, sauce, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, vinegar, egg, butter, pepper, sauce, flour. 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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