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To Dress and Bake a Haddock

A haddock fillet stuffed with parsley, bread crumbs, and seasoning, then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Dress and Bake a Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and wash the haddock thoroughly.

  2. Cut off the tail and fins, then dry the fish completely.

  3. Make a stuffing with parsley, bread crumbs, dripping, pepper, and salt, and moisten it with the egg.

  4. Stuff the mixture into the fish and sew the flaps over.

  5. Shape the haddock into an 'S' by drawing string through the head, middle, and tail.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish on a greased baking tin, brush with melted dripping, and cover with bread crumbs.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Carefully lift the fish onto a hot dish, remove the string, and serve with dry toast and fresh butter.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together inside the fish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture in the stuffing and form a crisp, browned crust on top.
Dripping
Adds fat for moisture and flavour, and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Haddock
The main protein; it cooks through in the oven and becomes flaky.

The step that matters

Dry the fish completely. Surface water turns to steam during baking and dilutes the seasoning, and it stops the crumb topping from crisping. Patting the fish dry before stuffing and coating helps it bake well.

“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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