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Baked Haddock

A whole haddock is stuffed with breadcrumbs, bacon, parsley, and anchovy, then baked in a sauce of flour, water, butter, and anchovy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Trim the haddock neatly, roll it up, fastening the tail to the head with fine twine, and remove the twine before serving.

  2. Make a stuffing with bread crumbs, bacon, parsley, salt, pepper, essence of anchovy, and enough egg to form a stiff paste; stuff the fish and sew it up neatly.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix flour with cold water, pour in boiling water, and stir in butter and essence of anchovy.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish, place the stuffed fish in it, and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour, basting frequently.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 body of the dish, cooking into moist, flaky flesh around the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Bind the stuffing and absorb moisture, giving it a soft, cohesive texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing into a stiff paste so it holds its shape when cooked.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing as it renders during baking.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce that coats the fish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, improving its flavour and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Basting the fish during baking. Frequent basting spoons the hot liquid over the fish, keeping its surface moist so it does not dry out over the hour in the oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, bread, pepper, anchovy, egg, flour, butter):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, pepper, anchovy, egg, flour, butter. 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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