Name: Boiled Haddock
Ingredients: small piece of haddock; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 3/4 tablespoon butter; 3/4 tablespoon flour; 1/2 cup scalded milk; 1 egg; salt to taste; parsley for garnish

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the haddock

Clean and wipe the haddock, then tie it in cheesecloth.
Place the haddock on a trivet in a stewpan of boiling water with salt and vinegar, ensuring the water covers the fish.
Cook for about 15 minutes, until the flesh separates from the bone.
Transfer the haddock to a hot serving dish.
Remove the skin from the haddock.
Garnish the haddock with parsley.

Make the egg sauce

Melt butter for the egg sauce.
Add flour to the melted butter.
Gradually pour in scalded milk.
Beat the egg yolk.
Dilute the beaten yolk with a tablespoon of the hot mixture.
Add the diluted yolk to the remaining sauce.
Season the sauce with salt.

Serve

Serve the haddock with egg 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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, with flesh that firms and flakes as it cooks.
Butter: Enriches the sauce and carries the flour so it cooks smooth before the milk goes in.
Flour: Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that holds its body.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a mild, creamy body.
Egg: Thickens the sauce as its yolk sets gently in the hot mixture, adding richness.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk to the sauce. Egg proteins set at around 70°C and scramble if the yolk meets very hot liquid directly. Diluting the yolk with some hot sauce first and then stirring it into the rest gently brings it up in temperature so the sauce stays smooth and thickened.

Swap the parsley

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

Capersfits better
Nutmegfits about as well
Cinnamonfits about as well
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, vinegar, butter, flour, milk, egg. 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.