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Fillet of Haddock with Wine Sauce

A baked haddock fillet topped with a lemon‑onion wine sauce 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 pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fillet of Haddock with Wine Sauce

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.

Bake the haddock

  1. Remove the skin from the haddock and place it in a buttered baking pan.

  2. Pour melted butter, white wine, lemon juice, and onion juice over the fish.

  3. Cover and bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

  4. Transfer the fish to a serving dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add cream to the pan juices.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg yolk to the pan juices.

  3. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

  4. Strain the sauce over the fish and sprinkle with chopped 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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Haddock + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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 dish, cooking through gently under cover to stay moist.
Egg yolk
Thickens the pan juices and cream into a smooth, rich sauce as it gently heats.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sharpness of the wine and lemon.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the pan juices, building the flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the fish stay moist and carrying flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk to the pan juices. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce is too hot or boiling. Keep the heat low and stir the yolk in gradually so the sauce becomes smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, butter, white wine, lemon, cream, egg, 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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