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Baked Stuffed Cod or Haddock

A baked cod or haddock stuffed with breadcrumbs, suet, thyme, parsley, and egg, then baked with dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked Stuffed Cod or Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix breadcrumbs, suet, thyme, salt, pepper, and parsley.

  3. Add the beaten egg and milk if necessary to bind the mixture.

Stuff and bake

  1. Clean and wash the fish, then stuff it with the mixture.

  2. Skewer or sew the fish neatly (skewer haddock like an 'S').

  3. Place the fish in a baking tin with a little dripping.

  4. Bake for about 30 minutes, then sprinkle with brown crumbs before serving with brown 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Haddock + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod or haddock
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks gently in the oven.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing bulk and body.
Suet
Melts during baking, adding fat and moisture to the stuffing.
Egg
Sets when heated, binding the stuffing together.

The step that matters

Binding the stuffing. The stuffing must be moist enough to hold together but not so wet that it turns soggy. Add milk only if the egg alone does not bind the crumbs, since too much liquid makes the stuffing loose and weakens its structure during baking.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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