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To Dry Haddock

A method of drying and seasoning haddock for preservation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Dry Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the gills, eyes, and entrails from the haddock, and clean the blood from the backbone.

  2. Wipe the fish dry and sprinkle salt inside the bodies and eyes.

  3. Lay the fish on a board overnight.

  4. Hang the fish in a dry place for 3-4 days until ready to eat.

Coat and cook

  1. Skin the fish, rub it with egg, and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Place the fish before the fire and baste with butter until browned.

  3. Serve with egg sauce.

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

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  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 + breadtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together220 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, with firm flesh that holds up through drying and cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the fish during salting, firming the flesh and aiding preservation.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the fish and help form a crust.
Bread crumbs
Form a golden coating that crisps and browns during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a rich flavor on the surface.

The step that matters

Baste with butter until browned. Butter contains milk solids that brown and fat that carries heat to the surface, so the coating colors evenly. Too little heat or too little basting leaves the crumbs pale or dry.

“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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