Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Boiled Cod with Oyster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cod
Soak the cod in enough cold water to cover it with 3 tablespoons of coarse sea salt for at least 1 hour.
Boil the cod in 3 quarts of cold water until done, then remove from heat and let it sit in the water.
Make the oyster sauce
Boil the oysters in their own liquor until they are cooked, then drain and reserve the liquor.
In a saucepan, melt 1 ounce of butter and 1 ounce of flour over heat until bubbling.
Gradually pour in the boiling oyster liquor while stirring with a whisk until the sauce is smooth.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,582 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, 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
- Cod
- Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked through by boiling.
- Oysters
- Provide the main flavour, and their liquor gives the sauce its base.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the sauce base.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and combined with the liquor.
The step that matters
Gradually pour in the boiling oyster liquor while stirring. Adding hot liquid to the roux slowly while whisking keeps the starch dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy.
“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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