Skip to main content
Main

Haddock Creams

A chilled haddock mousse with tomato and aspic, served in small moulds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Haddock Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Place the haddock in the oven with a little butter on top and cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the skin and bones, then pound the haddock in a mortar and rub it through a sieve to cool.

Make the creams

  1. Melt the gelatine in the tomato pulp.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff, then add the mayonnaise and the remaining aspic jelly.

  3. Strain the tomato sauce into the cream mixture and stir in the haddock puree.

  4. Decorate small dariole moulds with a thin layer of aspic and tarragon and chervil leaves.

  5. Fill the moulds with the mixture and place them in the ice to set.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a cold dish, decorate with chopped aspic and small salad, and serve.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Tomato + cherviltop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried haddock
Forms the main flavour and the body of the creams once pounded into a puree.
Cream
Whipped to give the creams a light, airy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so the creams hold their shape when turned out.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and richness to the cream mixture.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity and colour, and carries the dissolved gelatine.
Aspic jelly
Adds savoury body and helps set the decorations and the creams.

The step that matters

Whip the cream until stiff. Cream that is under-whipped stays loose and will not hold its shape in the moulds, while over-whipping turns it grainy and can cause it to separate. Stopping at stiff peaks gives a light, stable base for the setting mixture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, cream, tarragon, chervil, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes