Skip to main content
Main

Haddock a LA Rarebit

A haddock fillet baked with a thick cheese sauce made from milk, flour, mustard, and shredded cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Haddock a LA Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, sift together flour, salt, and mustard.

  3. Add the dry mixture to the heated milk and stir until thick and smooth.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in cheese and butter until melted.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the haddock on a buttered platter.

  2. Spread the cheese mixture over the haddock.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until rich brown.

  4. Serve on the same platter.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to add richness and flavor, and browns on top in the oven.
Milk or thin cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the flour and cheese.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, helping it turn smooth and glossy.
Mustard
Adds sharp, savory flavor that balances the richness of the cheese sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture into the hot milk until thick and smooth. Flour must be fully dispersed and heated so its starch swells and thickens evenly; adding it in clumps or undercooking leaves a lumpy, floury sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, cheese, butter, haddock. 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

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes