Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Haddocks

Boiled haddocks served with melted butter and anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Haddock and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil Haddocks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the haddocks thoroughly, removing the insides and gills.

  2. Curl the haddocks around and fasten the tails to the mouths.

Boil and serve

  1. Place them on a fish plate and lay them in hot salted water.

  2. Remove any scum that forms on the surface.

  3. Simmer for 7 to 10 minutes, adjusting time based on the size of the fish.

  4. Serve hot with melted butter and anchovy 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. Haddock + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Haddock + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the main protein, which turns firm and flaky as it cooks.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mild fish when served.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury flavour that contrasts with the mild fish.

The step that matters

Simmer for 7 to 10 minutes. Simmering gently cooks the fish through while keeping it moist and tender. Boiling hard can break up the flesh and toughen it, and cooking time should follow fish size, since larger fish need longer to reach the centre.

“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 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes