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Norwegian Fish Pudding

A steamed fish pudding made with haddock, cream, egg yolk, butter, and mace.

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

Norwegian Fish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove skin and bones from the haddock and flake the fish.

Mix and steam

  1. In a bowl, combine the flaked fish with the egg yolk, melted butter, seasonings, and enough cream to create a soft mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with lobster sauce.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it flaky, tender bulk.
Egg yolk
Binds the fish and sets during steaming to hold the pudding together.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness so the mixture stays tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more delicate texture.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. Steam for the full hour so the egg yolk and cream set gently. Excessive heat makes the egg proteins tighten, leaving the fish rubbery and the texture watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, cream, egg, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, cream, egg, 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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