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Haddock

A haddock fillet stuffed with breadcrumb and parsley mixture, baked with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, salt, and moisten with milk.

Stuff the fish

  1. Place the haddocks skin-side up on a surface.

  2. Take a handful of stuffing, squeeze out excess moisture, and place it in the center of each piece of fish, folding the ends over.

Bake

  1. Transfer the stuffed haddocks to a baking dish, top with small pieces of butter.

  2. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes 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.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 and cooks through to become flaky.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and form a soft stuffing that holds its shape around the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the topping and encourages gentle browning.

The step that matters

Squeezing the stuffing. Excess moisture from the moistened bread crumbs can make the stuffing soggy and loose, so squeezing out the extra liquid helps it hold its shape in the fish.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, pepper, milk, butter. 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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