Name: Haddock, Scrambled
Ingredients: 1 dried haddock; ½ cup milk; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; toasted bread rounds

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Haddock, Scrambled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Boil the dried haddock in water for a few minutes until it easily comes off the bone.
Remove the fish from the water and scrape all the flesh free from the skin and bones using a fish knife and fork.

Cook and serve

In a saucepan, combine the fish with milk, butter, and pepper and stir until very hot.
Spread the mixture on toasted rounds of bread and serve hot.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together764 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried haddock: Provides the flaky, savoury fish that forms the body of the dish.
Milk: Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the fish soft rather than dry.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture.

“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.