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Baked Haddocks

A baked haddock dish with a sauce of fish stock, butter, flour, ketchup, vinegar, soy sauce, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and ketchup share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Haddocks

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the stock

  1. Make 1½ pints of fish stock with haddock heads, trimmings, onion, parsley, salt, pepper, and anchovies; strain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the strained stock and whisk in butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Add ketchup, vinegar, soy sauce, and white wine to the sauce; mix well.

Bake

  1. Place the haddock pieces in a deep dish and pour the sauce over them.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until cooked through.

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 + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the flaky main body of the dish and provides the cooked fish texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and gives the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when whisked with the butter.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.
Anchovies
Contribute savory depth to the stock and sauce.

The step that matters

Whisking the butter and flour into the hot stock. Adding flour to hot liquid without whisking constantly can form lumps, because starch granules clump before they disperse. Whisking while the mixture is hot and then keeping it moving helps the flour hydrate evenly and produces a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, haddock, parsley, pepper, butter, flour, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, haddock, parsley, pepper, butter, flour, 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.

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