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To Stew Haddocks

A stew of haddock simmered with water, peppercorns, onion, cayenne, lemon juice, and ketchup, finished by frying the fish in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and ketchup share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Stew Haddocks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Bone and trim the haddocks, removing heads, tails, and fins.

  2. Place the haddocks in 3 pints of water with peppercorns and onion.

Make the stew

  1. Stew slowly for 35 minutes.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Dredge the fish in flour and fry until brown over a clear fire.

  4. Return the fish to the stock.

  5. Add cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and ketchup.

  6. Stew until the gravy reaches a rich consistency.

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 + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 stew, becoming tender as it gently simmers in the stock.
Flour
Coats the fish so it browns when fried and helps thicken the gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the stock as it stews.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the flour-dredged fish. Flour browns through the Maillard reaction only when the pan is hot enough, and fish fried too gently absorbs oil and turns soggy instead of golden. Keep the heat high and the fish dry before it goes in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, flour, pepper, lemon, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, flour, pepper, lemon, ketchup. 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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