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Haddocks Stewed

A stew of haddock simmered with onion, peppercorns, and a sauce of catsup, anchovy essence, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and anchovy share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddocks Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scrape the skin off the haddocks and remove the heads, tails, fins, and belly flaps.

  2. Place the fish in a pan with water, peppercorns, and onion. Stew slowly for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the stock and dredge the fish with flour.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the fish in dripping or butter until golden.

  2. Put the fish back in a stewpan with the stock, adding Cayenne pepper, catsup, and essence of anchovy.

  3. Stew until the sauce thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve in a deep dish with the 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. Haddock + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Haddocks
Form the main body of the stew, flaking into tender pieces as they cook.
Flour
Coats the fish so it browns when fried and helps thicken the sauce.
Dripping or butter
Fat for frying that gives the fish a golden colour and rich flavour.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the fish until golden. Flour-dredged fish needs enough hot fat to brown without burning. Browning adds flavour and a crisp surface, while overcooking dries the flesh and makes it fall apart in the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, flour, butter, pepper, anchovy. 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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