Skip to main content
Main

Codfish a LA Creme

A codfish dish simmered in a butter, flour, milk, and cream sauce, topped with grated cheese and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the codfish for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the skin and bones.

  3. Break the fish into rough pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour.

  3. Heat the milk until it boils.

  4. Add the butter and flour mixture along with a little pepper.

  5. Add the fish to the sauce.

  6. Boil for 2 minutes.

Finish and brown

  1. Transfer the mixture to a dish.

  2. Sprinkle cheese on top.

  3. Brown quickly under a broiler.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 main body of the dish as flaky protein pieces.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour, and combines with flour to thicken it.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Grated cheese
Melts over the top and browns under the broiler for a golden crust.

The step that matters

Brown quickly under a broiler. The cheese topping browns fast under high heat, so it can scorch or dry out if left unattended. Watching it closely keeps the top golden while the sauce stays moist underneath.

“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.

More cod à la crème recipes

Salt 3 See all 8 →

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes