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Smoked Haddock

A smoked haddock baked with milk, white sauce, cayenne pepper, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, and oiled butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Smoked Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the smoked haddock and season with cayenne pepper.

  2. Pour ½ cup of milk over the fish and cover with white sauce.

  3. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs, then moisten with oiled butter.

Bake

  1. Place the fish in a well‑buttered paper bag, seal it, and cook for 20 minutes in a very hot oven (400 °F or 200 °C).

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Milk + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked haddock
The main fish, cooked gently in the sealed bag so it stays moist.
White sauce
Covers the fish, adding moisture and richness as it cooks.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the topping brown.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping over the fish.
Oiled butter
Adds fat that moistens the breadcrumbs and helps them brown.

The step that matters

Sealing the paper bag and baking for 20 minutes. The sealed bag traps steam, which gently cooks the fish and keeps it moist. Leaving it unsealed or baking too long can dry the fish out and stop the topping from staying tender beneath the crumbs.

“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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