Why it works: Fish and cream work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 937 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
To Prepare Cod-fish for the Table
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Remove the skin and bones from the cod fish.
Cut the fish into short pieces, then pick it very fine.
Soak the fish in cold water for 10 to 15 minutes, keeping it in a warm place.
Make and serve
Prepare cream as you would for dried beef.
When the cream boils, add the fish that has been skimmed from the water and serve.
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.
-
Fish + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together937 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cod fish
- Forms the main body of the dish, flaked into tender pieces that carry the cream.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, coating the fish and forming the sauce.
The step that matters
Soaking the fish in cold water. Soaking draws out salt from salted cod, so the fish tastes milder and seasons the cream correctly. Keeping it warm while soaking helps it stay tender rather than cooling and firming up.
“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.
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Fried Fish120 recipes
Fish Croquettes81 recipes
Scalloped Cod69 recipes
Broiled Fish68 recipes