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To Dress Haddocks

A baked haddock dish served with mashed potatoes, butter, egg glaze, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Dress Haddocks

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. Clean and season the haddocks.

  2. Place them neatly on a flat dish with a border of mashed potatoes.

  3. Glaze the fish with the egg and place bits of butter on top and inside each fish.

  4. Garnish with potato balls.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pour a little melted butter and catsup over the dish before serving.

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 + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  2. Haddock + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Haddock + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together492 recipes

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 through in the oven.
Egg
Glazes the fish, helping the surface brown and set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts over and into the fish.
Mashed potatoes
Form a border around the fish and add a soft, starchy base for the dish.

The step that matters

Glaze the fish with the egg. The beaten egg coats the surface so it sets and browns during baking. Applying it evenly keeps the color uniform and helps hold the butter in place.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, egg, butter. 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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