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Haddock, Yorkshire Mode of Dressing

A haddock fillet prepared with clarified butter, egg, bread crumbs, and a sauce of melted butter and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Haddock, Yorkshire Mode of Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and wash the haddock, then rub it with salt inside and out.

  2. Hang it in a cool, airy place for two days.

  3. In a saucepan, bring water to a boil and simmer the haddock gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Remove the haddock, drain it, and take off the head and skin.

Coat and brown

  1. Dip the fish in beaten egg or a thin flour and water mixture, then coat it with seasoned bread crumbs.

  2. Pour clarified butter over the fish and place it in a Dutch oven to brown nicely.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Boil the egg for 6 minutes.

  2. Pound the yolk and mix it with melted butter.

  3. Chop the egg white into small dice and stir it into the sauce.

  4. 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Haddock + breadtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together220 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

Haddock
Forms the main body of the dish, flaking into moist, tender pieces when simmered gently.
Egg
Binds the crumb coating to the fish and, as yolk, enriches the sauce.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it a smooth, mellow texture.
Clarified butter
Browns the coated fish evenly and gives a rich, nutty flavour without milk solids burning.
Seasoned bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the outside of the fish.

The step that matters

Browning the coated fish. Clarified butter is poured over the crumb-coated fish so it can brown without scorching. Bread crumbs brown through Maillard reactions, which need dry surfaces and heat, so the coating must be well covered and dry before browning.

“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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