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Haddock, Fillets of

Fried haddock fillets served with a mushroom and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddock, Fillets of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the flesh from the bone by running a knife along the spine and take off the skin.

  2. Dip the fillets in the beaten egg, then roll them in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve the fish

  1. Fry the fillets in hot lard or dripping until browned on both sides.

  2. Drain the fillets from the fat and serve on a hot dish.

Make the mushroom sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the chopped mushrooms, shallots, parsley, and brown sauce.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes and 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. Haddock + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked to flaky tenderness inside a crisp coating.
Beaten egg
Acts as a glue so the bread crumbs adhere evenly to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden, browned crust when fried in hot fat.
Lard or dripping
Conducts heat to brown the coating quickly and adds savory richness.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and body to the sauce.
Brown sauce
Provides the rich, savory base that the sauce is built on.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets in hot lard or dripping until browned on both sides.. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy instead of crisping. Frying in hot fat seals the crumbs quickly, keeping the fish moist inside.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, egg, bread, mushroom, shallot, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, egg, bread, mushroom, shallot, sauce. 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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