Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Haddock

Stewed haddock served with mashed potatoes, egg whites, and drawn butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Haddock

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.

Poach the fish

  1. Simmer the haddock in a pan of salted water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the fish on a platter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour drawn butter over the fish.

  2. Spread enough mashed potatoes to cover the fish nicely.

  3. Spread the egg whites over the potatoes.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until light brown.

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. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  2. Haddock + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Haddock + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together492 recipes

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 and turns flaky as it cooks through.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the fish moist during baking.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft layer that covers the fish and holds moisture beneath the topping.
Egg whites
Set under heat to form a light topping and brown richly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until light brown. Egg whites set and brown through Maillard reactions as they heat. Pulling the dish too early leaves the topping pale and wet, while baking too long can dry the fish and toughen the topping.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, butter, egg. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes