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Haddock Stewed with Claret

A stew of haddock cooked slowly with claret wine, onions, herbs, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Haddock Stewed with Claret

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the fish with pepper, salt, mace, and cloves.

  2. Place the fish in a pan.

  3. Add the shredded onions, parsley, and thyme.

  4. Pour in the claret and water.

  5. Add the butter and flour.

Cook

  1. Cook on a slow fire, turning the fish halfway through.

  2. Experiment with cider instead of claret if desired.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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, becoming flaky and tender as it gently stews.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet during the slow stew, adding body to the liquid.
Claret
Provides acidity and aroma, and flavours the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce.

The step that matters

Cook on a slow fire, turning the fish halfway through. Gentle heat keeps the delicate haddock flakes moist and intact, while turning it halfway helps both sides cook evenly in the liquid. Boiling vigorously would toughen the fish and break it apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, pepper, clove, onion, parsley, thyme, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, pepper, clove, onion, parsley, thyme, butter. 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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