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Cod Fillets

Baked cod fillets coated in butter and breadcrumbs, served with optional lemon or vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cod Fillets

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the cod and remove the fish from the bones.

  2. Cut the fish into thick blocks about 2 to 3 inches square.

Coat and bake

  1. Brush the blocks with beaten or melted butter.

  2. Toss the blocks in fine browned crumbs.

  3. Lay the blocks on a greased baking sheet.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter sauce, adding a little lemon juice or vinegar if desired.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the flaky main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven.
Butter
Carries moisture and fat that helps the crumbs brown and keeps the fish from drying.
Browned crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that contrasts with the tender fish.

The step that matters

Baking the coated blocks. Thick blocks need the full baking time to cook through, while a hot oven browns the crumb crust. Underbaking leaves the centre raw; overbaking dries the delicate fish.

“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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