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Fish Puddings

A savory pudding made from haddock, eggs, onion, parsley, bread crumbs, veal suet, and seasonings, boiled for one hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fish Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Bone the haddocks and beat them finely in a marble mortar.

  2. Rub the fish through a sieve into the mortar.

Mix and cook

  1. Add the eggs, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, bread crumbs, and veal suet to the mortar.

  2. Beat all the ingredients together until well combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture into a shape and boil for 1 hour.

  4. Turn out the pudding and serve with a rich brown 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Haddocks
Forms the main body of the pudding, giving it its flavour and substance.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the pudding together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the texture so the pudding stays light.
Veal suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.

The step that matters

Rubbing the fish through a sieve. Pushing the flesh through a sieve breaks up fibres and removes bones and skin, giving a smooth, even texture. Any missed bones or lumps will remain in the finished pudding.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, egg, parsley, pepper, 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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