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Codfish Stew

A stew made with shredded codfish simmered in milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Codfish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the shredded codfish in cold water to freshen it.

  2. Pour boiling water over the fish and let it stand for a few minutes, then drain.

Make the stew

  1. Pour fresh boiling milk over the fish, using 1 quart of milk for 1 cup of fish.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Thicken the stew with flour.

  4. If desired, add 1-2 beaten eggs or stir in whole eggs lightly, or use previously boiled eggs.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 savory flavor and the flaky body of the stew.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the stew and gives it a creamy, mellow texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the stew.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stew by swelling with heat as it cooks.
Eggs
Optional; when set by gentle heat they add richness and body to the stew.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with flour. Flour must be mixed in smoothly and cooked in the hot milk so starch granules swell evenly; added as dry lumps it stays grainy and uneven.

“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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