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To Stew Cod

A cod stew cooked with butter, wine, water, onions, mushrooms, oysters, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Stew Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Fry the cod slices in butter until half cooked.

  2. Remove the cod and place it in a stew pan.

  3. Add wine and water to cover the fish.

  4. Season the liquid with nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare fish gravy using the cod bones.

  2. Add the gravy to the pan with the butter and onion.

  3. Stir in the rolled butter, chopped mushrooms, oysters, and lemon juice.

Finish and serve

  1. Cook until the fish is done.

  2. Add the cooking liquid.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Wine + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the main body of the dish and firms up as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the cod surface when fried.
Egg-sized piece of butter, rolled in flour
Flour-coated butter melts into the liquid and thickens it into a smooth sauce.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, buttery sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until the fish is done. Cod turns opaque and flaky when cooked through but becomes dry and tough if overcooked. Because it was only half cooked earlier, the final simmer needs careful timing to finish it gently.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, wine, nutmeg, pepper, egg, flour, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, wine, nutmeg, pepper, egg, flour, mushroom. 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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