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Fresh Haddock in Tomato

A haddock fillet baked with onion and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fresh Haddock in Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Season haddock with salt and pepper, then coat in flour.

Bake

  1. Place haddock in an earthen dish and add slice of onion.

  2. Cover fish with strained tomato.

  3. Cook for 2 hours.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Haddock + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together401 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Provides the main body of the dish, its flakes firming and setting as they cook.
Strained tomato
Adds moisture and acidity, forming a sauce that keeps the fish from drying out.
Flour
Forms a thin coating that helps the surface brown and slightly thickens the juices.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury flavour as it softens into the tomato.

The step that matters

Cook for 2 hours. Fish is delicate and continues to firm and dry out the longer it stays in the oven, so a long bake at low heat can toughen the flesh if left unchecked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, pepper, flour, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, pepper, flour, tomato. 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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