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Crimped Cod Masked with Oyster Sauce

A codfish dish simmered in a creamy oyster sauce, garnished with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Crimped Cod Masked with Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the cod

  1. Place the codfish on a plate set on a napkin and tie up the corners.

  2. In a pot, bring enough water to a boil to cover the fish, adding salt and vinegar.

  3. Add the codfish to the boiling water and cook until done.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor until firm, but do not boil.

  2. Strain the oysters and remove the beards, returning them to the liquor.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until bubbling.

  4. Gradually pour in the oyster liquor and stir until smooth and just boiling.

  5. Add the cream and bring back to a boil, seasoning with white pepper and salt if needed.

  6. Pour the thick sauce over the fish and garnish with parsley and lemon.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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

Codfish
Provides the firm, flaky white fish that is the main part of the dish.
Oysters
Add briny, savory flavor and tender texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor as the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the oyster liquor into a smooth, body-rich sauce with the butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce back to a boil only after adding the cream, and keep the oysters from boiling. Oysters turn tough and rubbery when boiled, so they should only be scalded. Flour thickens properly only when the roux is cooked until bubbling and the liquid is brought to a boil, so the sauce stays smooth rather than grainy or thin.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, oyster, butter, flour, cream, parsley, lemon):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, oyster, butter, flour, cream, parsley, lemon. 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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