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Fish Pudding

A pudding made from haddock, onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, veal suet, eggs, and gravy, boiled for one hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Pound the haddock flesh in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Pass the fish through a sieve and mix in the gravy.

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the onion, parsley, bread crumbs, and veal suet together.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the eggs and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Combine the fish mixture with the other ingredients until well mixed.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding in a mold for one hour.

  2. Serve with a rich brown sauce.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Provides the main body of the pudding, setting into a soft, tender mass when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body and a light texture.
Veal suet
Adds fat, keeping the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor base to the pudding.

The step that matters

Pounding the haddock until smooth. Breaking the fish fibers into a fine paste, then sieving it, gives the pudding a smooth, even texture. Under-pounded fish stays lumpy and can cook unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, parsley, bread, veal, egg, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, parsley, bread, veal, egg, pepper. 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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