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Boiled Codfish and Oyster Sauce

A boiled codfish served with a sauce made from oysters, butter, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Boiled Codfish and Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the codfish in cold, salted water for 30 minutes before cooking.

  2. Roll the fish in a clean cloth dredged with flour and sew the edges to completely envelop the fish.

Cook the fish

  1. Place the fish in boiling salted water with cloves, peppercorns, and lemon peel.

  2. Check for doneness by gently pulling on the fins; they should come out easily.

  3. Arrange the cooked fish on a folded napkin and garnish.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. For the oyster sauce, scald the oysters in ½ cup of oyster liquor.

  2. Remove the oysters and add salt, pepper, mace, and butter to the liquor.

  3. Whisk in ½ cup of milk mixed with ½ teaspoon of flour and simmer briefly.

  4. Add the oysters back to the sauce and serve in a sauce boat.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, cooked gently in the wrapped cloth.
Oysters
Provide the briny, savoury flavour that defines the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce, giving body and mild sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the sauce becomes smooth and coats the fish.

The step that matters

Whisk the flour and milk into the sauce. Flour mixed into cold milk before it is added can clump; whisking it smoothly into the hot liquor and simmering briefly lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the sauce without lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, clove, lemon, oyster, pepper, butter, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, clove, lemon, oyster, pepper, butter, milk. 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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