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Baked Haddock

A baked haddock stuffed with bacon, parsley, breadcrumbs, and anchovy, topped with an anchovy‑flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Baked Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the haddock, remove the eyes, and truss it by passing its tail through the cavity of the eyes or tying it to its mouth.

  2. Chop the bacon and parsley, mix with breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, essence of anchovy, and egg to form a stiff paste.

  3. Stuff the fish with the mixture and sew it up.

Make the sauce

  1. In a basin, mix flour with water, then pour in boiling water, and add butter and essence of anchovy.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking tin, place the fish on top, and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour, basting frequently.

  2. Add skinned shrimps to the sauce halfway through cooking for extra flavor.

  3. Serve in the baking tin or carefully transfer to a dish, pouring sauce around it.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Haddock + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Anchovy + shrimptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg
Binds the stuffing into a stiff paste that holds its shape during baking.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the fat and juices to give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Flour
Thickens the water and butter mixture into the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it smoothness and flavor.
Fat bacon
Melts during baking, adding fat and savory flavor to the stuffing and fish.

The step that matters

Basting the fish during baking. Frequent basting moistens the surface of the fish as it cooks, helping keep the flesh from drying out over the hour in the oven.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

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