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Haddock Pudding

A baked dish of haddock, potatoes, egg, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddock Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish and potatoes

  1. Boil the haddock in salted water with vinegar for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the skin and bones, then cut the fish into small pieces.

  3. Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft, then sieve them.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. Mix the sieved potatoes with the fish, egg, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Shape the mixture as desired, place it on a buttered baking tray, and bake until golden.

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 + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Haddock
Forms the main body of the pudding and provides its flavour.
Potatoes
Sieved, they add soft bulk and moisture that holds the mixture together.
Egg
Binds the fish and potato mixture so it holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Shape the mixture and bake until golden. The mixture is soft and moist, so it needs to be shaped firmly and baked until the surface sets and browns. Underbaking leaves it loose, while the egg needs enough heat to set the pudding.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

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