Name: Another Wat to Bake Haddocks
Ingredients: 3 large haddocks; 2 onions, sliced; 1 bunch of parsley; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; 1 small haddock; a few bread crumbs; butter, to taste; 1 glass of white wine (optional for pie)

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 ↓

Another Wat to Bake Haddocks

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

Wash and scrape the scales off the haddocks, leaving the heads on.
Make a sauce with the heads of the haddocks, sliced onions, parsley, pepper, and salt.
Boil the small haddock in this sauce.
Strain the sauce.

Stuff and bake

Use the boiled fish, picked from the bones, to make a stuffing with bread crumbs, chopped parsley, butter, salt, and pepper.
Stuff the haddocks with the mixture and place them in a deep dish with the sauce.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 dish, becoming flaky and tender when cooked through.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and bind the boiled fish into a soft, cohesive stuffing.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist and flavorful.
Onions: Add sweetness and aroma to the sauce as it simmers with the fish heads.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, parsley, pepper, bread, butter, white wine):

Shallotfits better
Potatofits better
Carrotfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, parsley, pepper, bread, butter, white wine. 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.