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To Bake a Haddock

A whole haddock stuffed with parsley, herbs, bread crumbs, and butter, then baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Bake a Haddock

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the haddock and scrape off the scales.

  2. Stuff the fish with parsley, herbs, bread crumbs, and butter.

  3. Season the stuffed fish to taste.

  4. Sew up the fish.

Coat and bake

  1. Rub the fish with melted butter or dripping.

  2. Roll the fish in bread crumbs.

  3. Place the fish on a greased baking tray.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Haddock
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks to flakiness in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the outside and absorb some moisture inside the stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumb coating brown.

The step that matters

Bake in a preheated oven. Fish cooks quickly and dries out easily. Starting in a fully preheated oven and checking early helps the flesh become opaque and flaky without overcooking, especially since cooking time depends on the fish's size.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, bread, 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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