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To Stew Haddocks

A stew of haddock simmered with water, peppercorns, onion, cayenne, lemon, and ketchup, then fried in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and ketchup share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Stew Haddocks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the heads, tails, and fins from the haddocks and trim them neatly.

Make the stock

  1. Place the haddocks in a pot with 3 pints of water, peppercorns, and onion.

  2. Stew slowly for 35 minutes, then strain the gravy.

Finish the stew

  1. Dredge the fish in flour and fry until browned over a clear fire.

  2. Return the fish to the stock, add cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and ketchup.

  3. Stew until the gravy reaches a rich consistency.

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. Haddock + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 stew and flakes into the gravy as it cooks.
Flour
Coats the fish so it browns during frying and helps thicken the gravy.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness to the stock as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory gravy.
Ketchup
Adds tomato-based sweetness, acidity, and depth of flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the floured fish. Fish coated in flour browns quickly over high heat, and overcooking it can make the flesh dry and tough. Removing it at the right moment keeps it tender before it returns to the gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, flour, pepper, lemon, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, flour, pepper, lemon, ketchup. 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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