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Boiled Dried Haddock

A boiled dried haddock served hot with melted butter, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Dried Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fins from the haddock and skin it by holding the skin side to the fire for a minute.

  2. Cut the fish into neat pieces about 2 inches square.

Cook

  1. Place the pieces in a stewpan and cover with equal parts cold milk and water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes or less, depending on thickness and curing.

  3. Remove the fish and arrange on a hot dish.

Serve

  1. Melt the butter, season with white pepper, and pour over the fish.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve very hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried haddock
Provides the main fish, which firms and flakes as it cooks gently in liquid.
Milk
Gently poaches the fish and adds a mild, creamy richness to the liquid.
Butter
Melted over the fish to add richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 5 minutes or less. Boiling vigorously toughens fish proteins and makes them dry and ragged. A gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly, and the time should be shortened for thinner or more heavily cured pieces.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

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

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