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Haddocks in Brown Sauce

A stew of haddocks simmered in a brown sauce made from stock, herbs, onion, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and oyster work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddocks in Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash, dry, and empty the haddocks.

  2. Combine 3 haddocks, stock, sweet herbs, onion, and lemon rind in a saucepan.

  3. Cut fillets from the remaining haddocks.

  4. Remove skin from the fillets.

Make the gravy

  1. Add heads, tails, and trimmings to the saucepan.

  2. Simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Season the gravy with spices and cayenne.

  5. Brown the gravy with a little brown roux.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the fish slices to the saucepan.

  2. Boil for about 10 minutes.

  3. Carefully lift the fish out with a slotted spoon.

  4. Place the fish on a hot dish.

  5. Pour the gravy over the fish.

  6. Add claret and oysters if desired.

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 + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + oystertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  4. Haddock + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Haddock + oniontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddocks
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a delicate, flaky texture.
Good stock
Provides the liquid base that carries the flavour of the gravy.
Brown roux
Thickens the gravy and gives it a browned colour and nutty depth.
Large onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it simmers in the stock.

The step that matters

Boiling the fish slices. Fish flakes apart when overcooked, so the slices should cook only until just opaque and firm. Lift them out promptly and handle them gently to keep them whole.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, onion, oyster):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, onion, oyster. 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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