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Codfish Axd Macaroni

A baked dish of codfish, macaroni, hard‑boiled eggs, and a creamy butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Codfish Axd Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt codfish overnight.

  2. Steam the codfish until tender, then remove all bones and break it into small flakes.

Layer and make the sauce

  1. Layer cooked macaroni on a dish, followed by a layer of fish and a few slices of hard boiled eggs.

  2. Repeat with more macaroni and a final layer of fish on top.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour, salt, and pepper until creamy.

  4. Add the hot milk and stir until thickened.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fish and macaroni, sprinkle with minced parsley, and serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and flaky texture of the dish.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavor as the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats with the flour.
Cooked macaroni
Provides the starchy body that holds the layers together.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture between the layers.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce as it thickens. Flour must be cooked briefly in melted butter and whisked into hot milk to avoid lumps. Stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than clumping.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, pepper, 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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