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Baked Haddock

Baked haddock stuffed with breadcrumbs, suet, herbs, and parsley, baked in dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Baked Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the haddock.

  2. Wash and dry it.

Make the stuffing

  1. Melt the dripping in a tin.

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, suet, parsley, herbs, pepper, and salt. Add a little milk to bind.

  3. Stuff the mixture inside the fish and sew it up. Tie the fish into a nice shape.

Bake and serve

  1. Place it in the tin. Pour the melted dripping over it. Sprinkle with a few crumbs.

  2. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for one hour, basting occasionally.

  3. Transfer the haddock to a hot dish. Remove the string and cotton. Garnish with parsley.

  4. Serve plain or with melted butter.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 its flesh cooks through during the baking.
Dripping
Fat that coats the fish, promoting browning and keeping the flesh moist as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and absorb moisture, giving it a soft, cohesive texture.
Suet
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and rich during baking.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Regular basting spoons melted fat over the fish's surface, keeping it from drying out during the hour in the oven and encouraging even browning.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

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