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Baked Codfish

A baked dish of codfish mixed with mashed potatoes, milk, eggs, butter, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Codfish

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 codfish

  1. Soak the codfish overnight.

  2. Clean the codfish with a brush.

  3. Simmer the codfish in water until tender.

  4. Remove the codfish and mash it finely.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix the mashed codfish with the mashed potatoes, milk, beaten eggs, butter, and pepper.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes or until browned.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the flaky body of the dish.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold it together.
Mashed potatoes
Add bulk and a soft, creamy texture to the mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Soak and clean the codfish thoroughly. Salt cod is heavily salted for preservation, so it must be soaked long enough to draw out excess salt. Otherwise the finished dish will taste overly salty and harsh.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, pepper. 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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