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Stuffing for Pike, Haddock, and Small Cod

A savory stuffing made with bacon, suet, butter, herbs, anchovy, and bread crumbs, bound with egg, for fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Stuffing for Pike, Haddock, and Small Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Combine fat bacon, beef suet, and fresh butter in a bowl.

  2. Add finely chopped parsley, thyme, savory, onion, marjoram, and anchovy if using.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and pepper.

  4. Mix in bread crumbs and 1 egg to bind the mixture.

Stuff the fish

  1. Stuff the mixture into the fish of your choice.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fat bacon
Adds fat that melts during cooking, keeping the stuffing moist and rich.
Beef suet
Provides hard fat that adds richness and a moist, tender texture.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and flavour, enriching the stuffing and helping it stay moist.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and moisture, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when stuffed into fish.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, parsley, thyme, marjoram, anchovy, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, parsley, thyme, marjoram, anchovy, nutmeg. 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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