Name: Fresh Haddock in Tomato
Ingredients: 1 pound haddock; salt to taste; pepper to taste; flour for dusting; 1 small slice onion; strained tomato

Why it works: Haddock and tomato work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 128 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).
Dust the haddock with salt, pepper, and flour.
Place the haddock in an earthen dish.

Assemble and bake

Add the slice of onion on top.
Cover the fish with strained tomato.
Cook for two hours.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Haddock + tomatotop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together128 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,913 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together20,622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,463 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Haddock + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together397 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: Is the main protein that becomes flaky and tender during the long, gentle cooking.
Strained tomato: Forms a moist, acidic sauce that keeps the fish from drying out as it cooks.
Flour: Lightly coats the fish surface, helping it hold moisture and giving the sauce some body.
Onion: Adds mild aromatic flavour that infuses into the tomato sauce during baking.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, pepper, flour, tomato):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Potatobetter flavor fit
Carrotbetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, pepper, flour, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.