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 ↓
Stewed Haddock
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish and stock
Split the fish lengthwise and cut into pieces.
Boil the bones and head in enough water to cover them, then strain the liquid.
Butter a porcelain saucepan and lay the fish in it with the flesh side down.
Stew the fish
Sprinkle each piece with cayenne, salt, mace, and flour.
Pour 1 pint of the fish liquor over the fish, cover, and simmer gently for 20 minutes, shaking the saucepan occasionally to prevent sticking.
Add the Reading sauce, anchovy sauce, and sherry.
Rub the butter and flour together, blend with a little gravy, and stir into the saucepan.
Stir constantly, add more seasoning if necessary, and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve
Serve in a deep dish with parsley and lemon, pouring the gravy over the fish.
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.
-
Haddock + saucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together200 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Haddock + anchovytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together75 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,697 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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, becoming flaky and tender when gently simmered.
- Butter
- Enriches the gravy with fat and carries flavour, and with flour helps thicken the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that clings to the fish.
- Sherry
- Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
- Anchovy sauce
- Adds savoury, salty depth to the gravy.
The step that matters
Stirring in the butter and flour mixture. Adding flour raw to hot liquid can form lumps. Rubbing it with butter and blending it with a little gravy first lets it disperse evenly, and constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth as it thickens.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, butter, pepper, flour, sauce, sherry, anchovy):
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, butter, pepper, flour, sauce, sherry, anchovy. 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.
You might also like
Boiled Haddock10 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.