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Fish Pudding

A savory pudding made from haddock, eggs, parsley, onion, bread crumbs, and veal suet or marrow, boiled for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Bone and skin the haddocks.

  2. Pound the fish in a mortar and rub through a sieve.

Make the pudding

  1. Combine the fish with eggs, parsley, onion, white pepper, salt, and bread crumbs in the mortar.

  2. Pound the mixture well and place it into a shape.

  3. Boil for 1 hour.

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, giving it its flesh and mild flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, giving the pudding its firm structure.
Bread
Absorbs moisture and helps keep the pudding tender rather than dense.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture well and place it into a shape. Thorough pounding breaks the fish fibres and spreads the egg and bread evenly, so the pudding sets smoothly and holds together when turned out.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, egg, parsley, onion, bread, veal):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, egg, parsley, onion, bread, veal. 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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