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Filets of Haddock

Baked haddock filets seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Filets of Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Cut the filets neatly from the haddock and then cut each filet in half.

  2. Season the filets with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with lemon juice.

  3. Place a small piece of butter on top of each filet.

Bake

  1. Put the filets in a well‑buttered paper bag, fold it twice, and fasten the ends with clips.

  2. Cook the bag on a wire grid in a hot oven (400 °F / 200 °C) for about 10 minutes.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Haddock + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the flaky, delicate body of the dish, which sets and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, helping the fish stay tender in the sealed bag.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the mild fish.

The step that matters

Sealing the paper bag. The bag traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own moisture. If it is not sealed tightly, steam escapes, and the filets may dry out or cook unevenly.

“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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