Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Haddock or Cod

A simple boiled fish dish seasoned with salt and served with parsley and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Boiled Haddock or Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the fish clean and soak it in salt for 1-2 hours if fresh.

  2. Fill a fish kettle with boiling water and add salt.

Cook

  1. Place the fish in the kettle and boil for 1 minute.

  2. Pour in ½ cup of cold water gently to reduce the heat.

  3. Cook the fish at a simmer for 15-20 minutes, depending on thickness.

  4. Remove the fish immediately and drain it.

Serve

  1. Serve on a napkin garnished with parsley and melted butter on the side.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Haddock + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 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

Cod or haddock
Forms the main body of the dish; its flesh cooks gently into moist, flaky pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat to balance the mild, lean fish when served on the side.

The step that matters

Cook the fish at a simmer. Once the cold water lowers the heat, the water should only simmer. A hard boil toughens and breaks the delicate fish, while cooking too briefly leaves the centre underdone. Timing should follow the thickness of the fish.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, 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.

You might also like

Boiled HaddockBoiled Haddock10 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes