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Creamed Codfish

A codfish dish simmered in a butter‑flour‑milk sauce seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Creamed Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Shred the codfish.

  2. Soak the shredded codfish in cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil.

  4. Drain the codfish.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

Finish

  1. Add the codfish to the sauce.

  2. Season with pepper and salt if needed.

  3. Cook for 3 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

Codfish
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, mellow flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce when cooked with the butter as a roux.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that thickens into the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually while stirring constantly. Starch granules in the flour swell when hot liquid reaches them. Adding milk slowly and stirring keeps the granules dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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