Skip to main content
Main

Haddock Cases

A baked dish of smoked haddock puree in fried bread cases topped with whipped egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Haddock and cream work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 181 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Haddock Cases

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the skin from the smoked haddock and pound it with the butter until smooth.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve, then add the cream and cayenne pepper to create a rich puree.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare tiny cases from slices of fried bread and fill them with the haddock mixture.

  2. Cover the filled cases with stiffly whipped egg white.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until the egg white is crisp and lightly colored.

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 + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Smoked haddock
Provides the main flavor and the bulk of the savory filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the pounded filling a smooth texture.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the puree into a smooth filling.
Egg white
Whipped, it forms a light topping that crisps and browns in the oven.
White bread
Fried slices form the crisp cases that hold the filling.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg white. Egg white must be whipped stiff so it holds its shape over the filling and bakes into a crisp, lightly colored topping. Under-whipped white will spread and turn soggy.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes