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Creamed Finnan Haddie

A creamy fish dish made with Finnan haddie, butter, milk, corn starch, eggs, paprika, and optional sherry or cheese, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Prepare the fish

  1. Place the Finnan haddie flesh side down in a dripping pan and pour boiling water over it, then let it stand until cold.

  2. Remove the white part of the Finnan haddie and braise it in a chafing dish with 2 tablespoons of butter.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix 1 pint of milk with 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 tablespoons of corn starch, wetting the corn starch with a little milk.

  2. Season the sauce with coarse sea salt and paprika, then add it to the haddie.

  3. Once boiling, add the hard boiled eggs.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, stir in ½ cup of sherry before serving, or sprinkle grated cheese on top.

  2. Serve the dish on toast.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Sherry + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Finnan haddie
Is the main fish, providing the flaked flesh that the dish is built around.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, giving it a creamy body once thickened.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, tender texture to the finished dish.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour to the fish and to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with corn starch. Corn starch must be wetted with cold milk first so it disperses without lumps, then heated to a boil so its starch granules swell and thicken the sauce evenly.

“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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