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Stuffing for Haddock or Any Other Fish

A savory fish stuffing made with egg yolks, oysters, anchovies, shallot, parsley, spices, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stuffing for Haddock or Any Other Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stuffing

  1. Combine egg yolks, chopped oysters, pounded anchovies, chopped shallot or onion, and chopped parsley in a bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, cayenne, allspice, mace, and black pepper.

  3. Add bread crumbs or biscuit powder until the mixture binds together.

Cook and bind

  1. Melt butter over low heat in a saucepan.

  2. Add the mixture to the butter, stirring until it absorbs the butter.

  3. Sprinkle in more bread crumbs or biscuit powder until it forms a ball.

Fill the fish

  1. Use this stuffing to fill the fish.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness when the stuffing is set.
Oysters
Supply the main briny, savoury flavour of the stuffing.
Anchovies
Add a deep savoury saltiness that rounds out the seafood flavour.
Bread crumbs or biscuit powder
Absorb moisture and butter, giving the stuffing body and a firm, shapeable texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the crumbs and softening the mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture into the melted butter. Adding the mixture over low heat and stirring gently lets the crumbs absorb the butter evenly. Too much heat can scorch the butter or set the egg yolks unevenly, leaving a greasy or lumpy stuffing.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, oyster, clove, parsley, pepper, allspice, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, oyster, clove, parsley, pepper, allspice, bread. 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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