Name: Creamed Finnan Haddie and Potato
Ingredients: 2-pound finnan haddie; 1 cup milk; 2 green peppers, chopped; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 cups boiling water; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons margarine; 1½ cups cold, boiled potatoes, diced; 2 tablespoons flour

Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Creamed Finnan Haddie and Potato

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Parboil the finnan haddie in boiling water for a few minutes, then remove the skin and bones.
Cut the fish into small pieces and boil with the chopped green peppers in the boiling water for ten minutes.

Make the sauce

In a separate pan, melt the margarine, add the flour, and cook until it bubbles.
Gradually add one cup of the cooking liquid and the milk, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Combine and serve

Combine the fish, peppers, and potatoes with the white sauce.
Serve hot.

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.

Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Finnan haddie: Provides the main flesh and smoky, salty flavour of the dish.
Flour: Thickens the melted margarine and milk into a smooth white sauce.
Margarine: Adds fat to cook the flour and carry flavour into the sauce.
Milk: Forms the body of the white sauce and adds creaminess.
Potatoes: Add starch and soft body, absorbing some of the creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cooking liquid to the roux. Flour must be cooked briefly in fat before liquid is added, then the liquid is added gradually while stirring. This keeps the sauce smooth rather than lumpy, because starch granules swell evenly when dispersed in liquid.

Swap the potato

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

Capsicumfits better
Arrowrootfits about as well
Potatothe original
Parsnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, flour. 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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Creamed Finnan Haddie and Potato