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Boiled Codfish and Oyster Sauce

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 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. Lay the fish in cold, salted water half an hour before it is time to cook it.

  2. Roll the fish in a clean cloth dredged with flour. Sew up the edges of the cloth to envelop the fish entirely, leaving only one thickness of cloth over any part.

Cook the fish

  1. Put the fish into boiling water slightly salted. Add a few whole cloves, peppers, and a bit of lemon peel to the boiling water.

  2. Pull gently on the fins; when they come out easily the fish is done.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Take six oysters to every pound of fish and scald (blanch) them in a half-pint of hot oyster liquor. Take out the oysters and add them to the liquor, salt, pepper, a bit of mace, and an ounce of butter.

  2. Whip into the liquor a gill of milk containing half a teaspoonful of flour. Simmer the sauce for a moment. Add the oysters to the sauce and send to table in a sauce boat.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fish neatly on a folded napkin, garnish, and serve with oyster sauce.

  2. Serve egg sauce with the fish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1020Calories
51 gProtein
37 gFat
119 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Salmon100g cooked208
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Oyster6 medium (84g)81
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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

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

  4. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 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

Oysters
Provide the main flavour of the sauce and tender bites in the finished dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it a creamy, pourable consistency.
Flour
Thickens the milk and liquor into a sauce and coats the fish cloth.

The step that matters

Pull gently on the fins to test doneness. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and firm when overcooked. Fins that pull out easily show the flesh is just cooked through, so testing early and gently prevents toughness.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, oyster, fish, lemon, 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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