Name: Baked Smoked Haddock
Ingredients: 1 good sized haddock; 1 cup fine bread crumbs; 3 ounces butter, softened; 2 boiled onions, chopped and mashed; small quantity of sage, finely chopped; pepper to taste; salt to taste

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Smoked 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 stuffing

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, butter, mashed onions, sage, pepper, and salt until well combined.

Stuff and bake

Stuff the haddock with the mixture neatly.
Place the stuffed haddock in a baking dish and bake until cooked through.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock: Is the main fish that is stuffed and baked until cooked through.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together inside the fish.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist as it bakes.
Onions: Add savory flavor and moisture to the stuffing.

Swap the sage

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

Parsleyfits better
Garlicfits better
Thymefits better
Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, butter, onion, pepper. 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.