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Gravy for Haddock, Baked

A buttery onion gravy thickened with flour, flavored with stock or Bovril, parsley, pepper, salt, browning, and mushroom ketchup.

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 ↓

Gravy for Haddock, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Brown the sliced onion in butter.

  2. Gradually add the stock or dissolved Bovril.

  3. Thicken with flour and let simmer with parsley for 20 minutes.

  4. Skim off the fat and strain the gravy.

Season and serve

  1. Add pepper, salt, browning if needed, and mushroom ketchup.

  2. Serve in a tureen.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the flavour and helps the onion brown while adding richness to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, carrying its savoury flavour.
Onion
Browns in butter to add sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and simmer. Flour must be cooked through in the simmering liquid, otherwise the gravy can taste raw and floury. Adding it gradually into hot liquid and stirring helps prevent lumps, and simmering lets the starch swell and thicken the gravy evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, parsley, pepper, mushroom, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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