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Haddock, Rechauffe of

A baked haddock dish topped with breadcrumbs and butter, flavored with anchovy essence and served with pickled walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and anchovy share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddock, Rechauffe of

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the bones of the cold cooked haddock in neat pieces and discard the skin.

  2. Place the fish in a baking dish and season with black pepper and coarse sea salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour melted butter, flavored with essence of anchovy, over the fish, using ½ cup of butter for every pound of fish.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and add small bits of butter.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with pickled walnuts on the side.

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 + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Meat + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together335 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked haddock
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the flaky meat that is served hot.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as they brown in the oven.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savory depth to the butter that seasons the fish.

The step that matters

Baking the fish. Fish is already cooked, so it only needs gentle heat to warm through. Overbaking dries the flesh and toughens it, while the butter and crumbs need enough time to brown lightly on top.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, meat, pepper, butter, anchovy, bread):

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, meat, pepper, butter, anchovy, bread. 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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