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To Stuff a Haddock and Bake It

A haddock stuffed with herbs, bread crumbs, suet, and egg, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

To Stuff a Haddock and Bake It

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the haddock, clean it in cold water, and dry it with a cloth.

  2. Grate some bread crumbs onto a piece of paper.

  3. Wash the parsley in cold water and dry it with a cloth.

  4. Chop the parsley finely; you need about 2 teaspoons.

  5. Chop a small sprig of thyme and marjoram finely; you need about 1 teaspoon.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix the herbs with ½ cup of the bread crumbs.

  2. Add pepper and salt to taste, then mix in 2 ounces of suet.

  3. Stuff the belly of the fish with the mixture and sew it up.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg in a plate and brush it over the fish, then roll it in the remaining bread crumbs to coat.

  2. Grease a baking dish with dripping.

  3. Place the fish in the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 to 50 minutes, basting frequently with dripping.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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, cooking to flaky tenderness as the centerpiece.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing, and form a crisp coating that browns in the oven.
Suet
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and rich as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the crumb coating to the fish and helps it set and brown.
Dripping
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a richer flavour on the surface.

The step that matters

Sealing the stuffed belly before baking. If the stuffing is not fully enclosed and sewn tightly, it can loosen or leak during cooking, and the fish may dry out at the exposed areas.

“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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