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Baked Haddock

A baked haddock stuffed with forcemeat, coated in breadcrumbs and butter, served with a milk‑water sauce and garnished with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Fill the cleaned haddock with forcemeat and sew it up.

  3. Sprinkle the fish generously with coarse sea salt and bread crumbs.

  4. Dot the fish with pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. To make the sauce, combine milk and water in a pan, add a pinch of salt, and thicken with flour.

  3. Garnish the platter with sliced lemon and parsley before serving.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 into flaky, tender meat.
Bread crumbs
Add a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the fish and absorb some moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during baking.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together inside the fish.
Flour
Thickens the milk and water into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during the 45-minute bake. Regular basting moistens the surface of the fish as it cooks, reducing drying and helping the crumbs and butter brown evenly. Lean fish can dry out quickly in dry oven heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, bread, butter, beef, pepper, egg, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, butter, beef, pepper, egg, milk. 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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