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Boiled Haddock

A whole haddock is boiled in court bouillon, then garnished with parsley and served with hot sauce tartare.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Boiled Haddock

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 ↓

Boiled Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the haddock, leaving the head and tail on.

  2. Arrange the fish in a circular form in a round tin and tie it in cheesecloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the fish in Court Bouillon for 30 minutes, or until cooked through.

  2. Remove the fish to a hot serving dish and garnish with parsley.

  3. Serve hot with Hot Sauce Tartare.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Haddock + fishtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

  4. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 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, cooking into moist, flaky flesh.
Court bouillon
Poaching liquid that gently cooks the fish and seasons it through.

The step that matters

Boil the fish until cooked through. Boiling too hard can break up delicate fish and dry its edges, while undercooking leaves the centre translucent and unsafe. Gentle simmering in the bouillon keeps the flesh moist and intact.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, fish, 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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