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Finnan Haddie

A baked haddock finished with milk, butter, and optional sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and cream work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 181 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Finnan Haddie

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 the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the haddock in a baking pan with the skin side down.

  3. Pour in enough warm water to cover the skin, but not the rest of the fish.

  4. Bake for 15 minutes until the skin loosens.

  5. Remove the fish from the oven and pull off the skin.

  6. Pour out the water from the baking pan.

Bake with milk and butter

  1. Return the fish to the pan and cover it with milk.

  2. Sprinkle bits of butter over the fish.

  3. Bake until browned.

  4. If using sweet cream, mix it with 1 tablespoon of flour and a little cold cream to thicken.

  5. Boil the cream mixture and pour it over the fish when cooked.

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. Haddock + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 into flaky, tender pieces with gentle heat.
Milk
Surrounds the fish during baking, keeping it moist and gently cooking it.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top of the fish brown during baking.
Flour
Thickens the optional cream mixture so it becomes a smooth sauce rather than thin liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the cream mixture before pouring it over the fish. Flour only thickens properly when heated to boiling, so the mixture must be boiled to become a smooth sauce rather than a lumpy or runny one.

“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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