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Finnan Haddie

A creamy fish dish made with Finan haddie, butter, cream, eggs, and cheese, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Finnan Haddie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the Finan haddie in fresh butter.

  2. Add the cream, hard-boiled egg, raw egg yolk, and grated cheese.

  3. Thicken with a cream sauce and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Cook slowly for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve in a chafing dish with small pieces of dry toast.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Finnan haddie
Provides the main flesh and smoky, salty flavour of the dish.
Fresh butter
Carries the fish in fat, adding richness and helping it cook gently.
Pure cream
Forms the sauce base, adding moisture and a smooth, rich texture.
Raw egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce as it gently heats, giving it body.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds firm texture and mild egg flavour through the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 10 minutes. Once a yolk is added, high heat can curdle the sauce. Gentle, slow cooking lets the yolk thicken the cream smoothly without scrambling.

“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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