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To Stew Haddock in Its Owx Liquor

A stew of haddock flavored with mace, cayenne pepper, butter, flour, and white wine.

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 Owx Liquor

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Split the haddock open and remove the bone.

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

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

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

Stew

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

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

  3. Mix butter and flour together, add the white wine, and pour the mixture into the pan.

  4. Let it boil for about 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully transfer 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and wine mixture into a gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and keeps the fish from sticking to the pan.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the gravy as it reduces.
Haddock
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it stews.

The step that matters

Start with a cold pan and stew slowly. Gentle, gradual heating lets the fish cook evenly and stay moist, while fast heat would toughen the flesh and scorch the butter.

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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