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Haddock Soup

A savory soup made with haddock fillets, beef stock, vegetables, herbs, and oysters, thickened with flour and finished with Madeira.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haddock Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Fillet the haddocks and set the fillets aside.

  2. Combine the bones of the haddocks, leg of beef, and other fish bones in a pot to make stock.

  3. Add onions, carrot, turnip, and allspice to the stock and boil.

  4. In a separate pan, melt butter and cook the ham, basil, marjoram, parsley, and thyme until done.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir in enough flour to thicken the mixture, then add it to the stock and let it boil for an hour.

  2. Strain the stock, mix it smoothly with the flour, and return to heat.

  3. Rub the mixture through a tammy, then add Madeira, pepper, salt, and cayenne.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the haddock fillets into 1‑inch pieces, remove the skin, and fry them in butter with pepper and salt.

  2. Drain the fried haddock and place it in a tureen, pouring the soup over it.

  3. Add the oysters and their liquor for an extra touch.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together445 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddocks
Provide the main fish flavour and the flaked fillet pieces served in the soup.
Leg of beef
Adds meaty body and savoury depth to the stock.
Butter
Carries the herbs and ham and gives the fried fish a rich, golden coating.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Oysters
Add a briny, delicate seafood flavour at the end.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a tammy after thickening. Straining and rubbing the soup smooth removes bones, herbs and solids so the flour-thickened stock sets a fine, even texture. Skipping it leaves a gritty, lumpy soup.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, beef, fish, onion, carrot, turnip, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, beef, fish, onion, carrot, turnip, 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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