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Stewed Codfish

A codfish stew with nutmeg, mace, cayenne, celery, oyster liquor, lemon, butter, flour, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the cod

  1. Place the cod slices in a stewpan and season with nutmeg, mace, cayenne pepper, and chopped celery or sweet herbs.

  2. Add the oyster liquor and lemon juice. Cover the stew.

  3. Stew gently until the fish is almost done, shaking the pan frequently.

Add the oysters and finish

  1. Roll the butter in flour and add it to the stew along with the oysters and their liquor. Cover the stew again.

  2. Increase the heat slightly and stew for 5 more minutes.

  3. Before serving, remove the bunch of sweet herbs.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fine fresh cod
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming flaky and tender as it gently stews.
Oyster liquor
Adds savory brininess and moisture, forming the cooking liquid for the stew.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid when rolled with butter and added to the pan.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the thickened stew.
2 dozen fine oysters
Contributes delicate briny flavor and tenderness as they cook briefly in the stew.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the seafood and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stewing the fish gently until almost done. High heat or long cooking toughens fish proteins and makes them dry and rubbery. Gentle heat keeps the cod flaky, and the oysters added later need only a short cook to stay tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, pepper, celery, oyster, lemon, butter, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, pepper, celery, oyster, lemon, butter, egg. 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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