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Cod-fish Cream

A creamy cod fish dish with butter, pepper, flour, eggs, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cod-fish Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the cod fish into small pieces and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then drain and repeat if too salty.

Make the cream

  1. Cover the fish with milk and heavy cream.

  2. Add butter and black pepper.

  3. Once it comes to a boil, thicken with flour mixed with cold milk.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in 1 or 2 beaten eggs.

Serve

  1. Serve with potatoes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 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

Cod fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the dish.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream and adds mild sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the cream body.
Eggs
Enrich and slightly set the cream when stirred in off the heat.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs off the heat. Eggs scramble if they meet a boiling liquid. Removing the pan from heat first lets them blend in and gently thicken the cream without curdling.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, cream, butter, pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Beansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, cream, butter, pepper, flour, 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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