Skip to main content
Main

Baked Haddock

Baked haddock stuffed with veal, coated in butter or egg and breadcrumbs, baked until tender, served with Beyrout sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Haddock and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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

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

  2. Fill the interior of the haddock with veal stuffing and sew it up with kitchen twine.

  3. Truss the fish with its tail in its mouth.

  4. Rub the back of the fish with butter, or coat it with egg and breadcrumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a baking dish and bake for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the size.

  2. Check for doneness by inserting a knife to the backbone; if the flesh parts easily, it is done.

  3. Serve the fish on a dish without a napkin and pour Beyrout sauce around it.

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 + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender flesh in the oven.
Veal stuffing
Fills the fish interior, adding flavour and moisture as it cooks inside the haddock.
Butter
Adds fat to the skin surface, supporting moisture and gentle browning in the oven.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres and browns on the fish surface.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the fish as it bakes.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a knife. Fish cooks quickly and becomes dry past doneness. Inserting a knife to the backbone and checking that the flesh parts easily shows whether it is cooked through, since the stated time depends on fish size.

“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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBoiled HaddockBoiled Haddock10 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes