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Creamed Finnan Haddie

A creamy sauce made with Finnan Haddie cheese, milk, flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Finnan Haddie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Mix the flour with the melted butter and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

Finish

  1. Add the Finnan Haddie and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring gently.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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

Finnan haddie
Provides the main smoky, salty fish flavor of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and creaminess.
Butter
Carries flavor and forms a roux with the flour for the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the hot milk, stirring constantly until thickened. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, preventing lumps. The starch thickens as the sauce heats, so the mixture must be stirred until it becomes smooth and thick.

“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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