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Stuffed Fillets of Fresh Haddock

A baked haddock fillet stuffed with suet, herbs, breadcrumbs, and lemon, then coated in buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Fillets of Fresh Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Make the stuffing by finely chopping the suet, parsley, mixed herbs, and lemon peel.

  2. In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, suet, herbs, parsley, lemon peel, salt, and pepper.

  3. Moisten the mixture with a beaten egg or milk.

Prepare and stuff the fish

  1. Skin the haddock.

  2. Fillet the haddock.

  3. Place the fillets, skinned side down, on a board.

  4. Sprinkle the fillets with lemon juice.

  5. Spread the stuffing over the fillets.

  6. Roll each fillet from the broad end towards the tail.

  7. Wrap each rolled fillet in a strip of buttered paper.

  8. Tie each wrapped fillet with strong cotton.

  9. Place the fillets in a well-buttered baking dish.

Bake and crumb

  1. Bake the fillets in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 10 minutes.

  2. Melt 2 oz. of butter in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in the remaining bread crumbs.

  4. Remove the fillets from the oven.

  5. Unwrap the fillets.

  6. Roll each fillet in the buttered crumbs.

  7. Butter the bottom of a fireproof dish.

  8. Place the rolled fillets in the dish.

  9. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crumbs are golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato sauce and additional lemon juice, pepper, and salt to taste.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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; gently cooked flesh turns moist and flaky.
Bread crumbs
Give the stuffing body and form the golden crust when rolled in butter.
Suet
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and tender as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the buttered crumbs brown in the oven.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when rolled and tied.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild fish and cuts its richness.

The step that matters

Baking the wrapped fillets. Fish proteins set and flake at moderate heat, and overcooking squeezes out moisture and leaves the flesh dry. The short first bake cooks the fish gently before the crumb coating browns in the hotter oven.

“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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