Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Boiling Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean the haddock after gutting it and soak it in a mixture of salt and water for about 10 minutes.
Drain the fish and place it in a fish kettle with cold water, covering it about two-thirds.
Skim off any scum that rises.
Cook and serve
Cover and boil gently for 5 to 10 minutes until cooked through.
Serve garnished with scraped horseradish or egg balls, and with oyster sauce or melted butter mixed with essence of anchovy or ketchup.
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.
-
Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,099 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Haddock + ketchuptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together23 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Haddock + saucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together200 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together479 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
- Haddock
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in water until it flakes.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the fish during the brief soak before cooking.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and fat to the serving sauce for the cooked fish.
The step that matters
Boil gently and check doneness. Boiling vigorously can break up the delicate flesh and toughen it, so the fish should simmer gently with the lid on until it is cooked through.
Swap the horseradish
The recipe marks horseradish as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, butter, egg, oyster, sauce, anchovy, ketchup):
- Shallotfits about as well
- Horseradishthe original
- Chivefits about as well
- Mustardfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, butter, egg, oyster, sauce, anchovy, ketchup. 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.
More boiled fish recipes
You might also like
Mock Oyster Soup21 recipes
Horseradish Sauce17 recipes
Boiled Haddock10 recipes
Corn Fritters6 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.