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To Cook Finnan Haddies

Finnan haddies cooked in water with pepper and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Cook Finnan Haddies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the Finnan haddies and place them in a skillet.

  2. Cover with water and bring to a boil.

  3. Drain the water and add a smaller amount of fresh water.

  4. Turn the haddies over, add pepper, and a piece of butter.

  5. Cook for twenty 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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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 haddies
Provides the main fish flesh and smoky flavour that defines the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooking liquid and fish.

The step that matters

Draining and re-covering with fresh water. Boiling first and then discarding that water removes much of the salt and smoke from the fish, so the second water sets the final seasoning. Too much salt left in the fish makes the dish harsh.

“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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