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Whole Baked Haddock

Whole baked haddock stuffed with eggs, butter, lemon rind, onion, and seasoned, then baked and garnished with pickles and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Whole Baked Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and dry the haddock thoroughly.

  2. Stuff the fish with the chopped eggs, melted butter, lemon rind, grated onion, and moisten with sweet cream.

  3. Sew the fish closed and cut four or five gashes on each side of the backbone.

  4. Insert a strip of bacon into each gash, alternating sides.

Season and bake

  1. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper, then brush with melted butter.

  2. Place the fish in a greased pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  4. Reduce the heat to 350°F (175°C) and bake for about 1 to 1¼ hours.

  5. Garnish with tiny cucumber pickles, quarters of sour orange, and parsley.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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 gently in the oven to become flaky and moist.
Eggs
Chopped into the stuffing, they bind the filling and help it hold together when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the fish and keeping its surface from drying out.
Bacon
Strips laid in the gashes melt and baste the fish, adding fat and savory flavor.
Bread and cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the stuffing, giving it a soft, cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Bake in two temperatures. Starting hot at 400°F sets the surface and begins cooking, then lowering to 350°F lets the thick fish cook through evenly without drying or burning the outside.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, egg, butter, lemon, pepper, celery, bread. 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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