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Creamed Finnan Haddie

A creamy fish dish with Finnan haddie, potatoes, cream, flour, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Finnan Haddie

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the fish and potatoes

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the stripped Finnan haddie and heat through.

  3. Mix in the diced potatoes and salt.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Stir in the cream or milk and flour.

  2. Add a little nutmeg and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.

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

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

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Finnan haddie
Provides the main smoky, savory fish flavour and the flaky texture of the dish.
Potatoes
Add body and soft starchy bulk that soaks up the creamy sauce.
Cream or milk
Supplies liquid and richness, forming the base of the creamy sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the heated liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich, nutty flavour when melted at the start.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream or milk and flour. Flour must be evenly dispersed in the liquid before heating, otherwise it forms lumps. Once heated, its starch swells and thickens the sauce, so the mixture needs to cook long enough for the flour taste to fade and the texture to set.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, flour, nutmeg):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, flour, nutmeg. 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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