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Haddocks a LA Royale

A baked haddock dish stuffed with whiting meat, topped with soles, lobster, truffles, bacon, and served with Parisian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and whiting match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddocks a LA Royale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the haddocks

  1. Bone the haddocks.

  2. Stuff the haddocks with quenelle force-meat of whiting.

  3. Place the haddocks head to tail on a baking sheet.

  4. Season the haddocks with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Bake the haddocks until cooked.

  6. Allow the haddocks to cool.

Decorate

  1. Cover the haddocks with a thin layer of quenelle force-meat.

  2. Arrange fillets of soles on top in a slanting direction.

  3. Mask the heads with force-meat mixed with pounded lobster-coral.

  4. Form eyes and mouth with truffles.

  5. Cover the haddocks with thin layers of bacon.

  6. Place a buttered paper over the haddocks.

Finish and serve

  1. About 45 minutes before serving, bake the haddocks to finish cooking.

  2. Remove the paper and bacon.

  3. Absorb excess grease with a clean napkin.

  4. Transfer the haddocks to a serving dish.

  5. Sauce the haddocks with Parisian 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 + whitingtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Whiting + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Haddock + lobstertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 dish, cooked gently and held together by the stuffing.
Quenelle force-meat of whiting
Forms a delicate, smooth stuffing and coating that sets as it cooks, giving a tender texture.
Fillets of soles
Add a delicate, tender layer of fish on the surface for a refined appearance.
Truffles
Add an earthy, aromatic flavour and dark contrast for the decorative eyes and mouth.
Bacon
Lays fat over the fish, adding savoury flavour and moisture as it cooks under the paper.

The step that matters

Bake the haddocks to finish cooking. Baking in two stages means the fish must be cooked through the first time and then gently reheated, so it stays moist and does not dry out or overcook during the final bake before serving.

“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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