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Haddock Boiled

A simple boiled haddock served with optional anchovy, parsley, or melted butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Haddock Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the haddock.

Cook

  1. Cover the fish with warm water and add salt to taste.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Cook gently for 20 to 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with anchovy, parsley, or melted butter 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. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Is the main protein, cooked gently in water until it turns flaky and opaque.
Melted butter sauce
Adds richness and moisture to the mild, poached fish.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 20 to 30 minutes. Once the water boils, a gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly. A hard boil can break the delicate flakes and toughen the flesh, so keep the water just below a rolling boil.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, anchovy, sauce, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, anchovy, sauce, 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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