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Baked Haddock

A whole haddock filled with forcemeat, baked with butter and breadcrumbs, served with a milk‑water sauce and garnished with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Fill the cleaned haddock with forcemeat and sew it up.

  3. Sprinkle the fish generously with salt and bread crumbs.

  4. Dot the fish with pieces of butter.

Bake

  1. Bake for 45 minutes, basting frequently.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. To make the sauce, combine milk and water in a pan, add a pinch of salt, and thicken with flour.

  2. Serve the fish garnished with sliced lemon 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (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 and cooks into flaky, tender fish in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown as it melts over the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a golden, lightly crisp crust on the outside of the fish.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together inside the fish.
Beef suet
Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping it moist and flavourful as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the liquid of the sauce into a smooth, pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Bake for 45 minutes, basting frequently.. Basting spreads the melting butter and cooking juices over the surface, keeping the fish moist during the long bake so it does not dry out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, butter, beef, pepper, egg, milk. 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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