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Filets of Haddock with Anchovy Butter

Filets of haddock are seasoned, baked, and served with anchovy butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Filets of Haddock with Anchovy Butter

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the filets and skin from the haddock carefully.

  2. Wipe the filets with a cloth and squeeze lemon juice over them.

  3. Dredge both sides of the filets with seasoned flour.

Bake in a paper bag

  1. Sprinkle with clarified butter and place in a well-buttered paper bag.

  2. Fold the ends of the bag and fasten with clips.

  3. Cook on a grid shelf in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

Serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a hot dish, place a small pat of anchovy butter on each filet, garnish with parsley, and serve.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Haddock + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the main flesh of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender pieces.
Seasoned flour
Coats the fillets, helping form a light surface that browns and holds moisture.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the coating brown during cooking.
Anchovy butter
Adds salty, savoury richness to the finished fish as it is served.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Bake in a paper bag. The bag traps steam around the fish, so it cooks gently and stays moist. Sealing it well and avoiding overcooking matters, since fish turns dry and firm once its proteins set past done.

“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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