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 ↓
Stewed Haddock
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Split the fish lengthwise and cut into pieces.
Boil the bones and head in enough water to cover them, then strain the liquid.
Butter a porcelain saucepan and lay the fish in it, flesh side down.
Sprinkle each piece with cayenne, salt, mace, and flour.
Make the stew
Pour 1 pint of the fish stock over the fish, cover, and simmer gently for 20 minutes, shaking occasionally to prevent sticking.
Add the Reading sauce, anchovy sauce, and sherry.
Rub the butter and flour together, blend with a little gravy, and stir into the saucepan.
Stir constantly, adjust seasoning if necessary, and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve
Serve in a deep dish with parsley and lemon, pouring the gravy over the fish.
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.
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Haddock + saucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together200 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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, becoming flaky as it cooks gently in the stock.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and combines with flour to thicken the gravy.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy when worked with butter.
- Sherry
- Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the gravy.
- Mace
- Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the fish and gravy.
The step that matters
Stirring the butter and flour into the gravy. Flour mixed with butter must be blended smoothly into the hot liquid and stirred constantly; otherwise it forms lumps and can scorch on the base of the pan, and the gravy thickens unevenly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, butter, pepper, flour, sauce, sherry, fish):
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, butter, pepper, flour, sauce, sherry, fish. 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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