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Codfish for Breakfast

A codfish breakfast dish made by simmering shredded codfish, then thickening with butter, cream, flour, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Codfish for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove all bones from the codfish.

  2. Place the fish in a frying pan covered with cold water.

  3. Heat gradually and simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Drain the fish.

Make the sauce

  1. Add pepper, butter, and cream.

  2. Reserve 2 tablespoons of cream for the flour.

  3. Gradually mix the flour into the reserved cream until smooth.

  4. When the cream simmers, add the flour mixture.

  5. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes.

  6. Stir in the well-beaten egg.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

  2. Garnish with points of dry toast.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Forms the main body of the dish, providing flaky texture and substance.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Provides moisture and richness, forming the base of the sauce.
Flour
Starch thickens the cream as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and helps thicken it as it is stirred in.

The step that matters

Gradually mix the flour into the reserved cream until smooth. Flour clumps when added dry or all at once to liquid. Dispersing the starch fully in cold cream first lets it thicken evenly when the mixture is heated, giving a smooth sauce.

“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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