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Boiled Haddock

A whole haddock is boiled in salted water and served with oyster or anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 and wash the haddock thoroughly, then scrape it.

  2. Place the fish in a kettle and add enough water to cover it.

  3. Add ½ cup of coarse sea salt to the water.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer gently until cooked through.

  2. Serve with oyster sauce or anchovy sauce, or egg sauce if the fish is salted.

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. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Haddock + fishtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together257 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
The main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and water, flavouring the fish as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until cooked through. Gentle heat cooks the fish evenly and keeps its flesh tender and in whole flakes. A hard boil toughens the protein and breaks the fish apart.

“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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