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To Stew Haddock in Its Own Liquor

A haddock stew cooked slowly in butter, flour, white wine, mace, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Stew Haddock in Its Own Liquor

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Split the haddock open and remove the bone completely.

  2. Cut the fish into square pieces about the length of your finger.

  3. Sprinkle the pounded mace and cayenne pepper on the fish pieces, spaced about an inch apart.

Stew

  1. Butter the sides and bottom of a large stewpan.

  2. Place the fish in the pan skin side down, close together but not overlapping.

  3. Start with a cold pan and let the fish stew slowly for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  4. Mix the butter and flour together well.

  5. Add the white wine.

  6. Pour the mixture into the pan.

  7. Let it boil for about 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the fish to a deep dish, spiced side up.

  2. Pour the gravy over it.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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, cooking gently into tender flakes.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness to the stewed fish.
Flour
Mixed with butter to thicken the liquid into a gravy.
White wine
Adds acidity and liquid that combines with the butter and flour into the sauce.
Pounded mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the fish.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat to the fish.

The step that matters

Start with a cold pan and stew slowly. Starting cold and cooking gently keeps the delicate fish from toughening and breaking apart, as high heat makes proteins contract and dry out.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, pepper, butter, flour, white wine. 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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