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Creamed Codfish

A creamy codfish dish made with salt fish, milk, butter, flour, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Creamed Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt fish in cold water overnight, then drain and separate into very small pieces.

Make the creamed codfish

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until boiling.

  2. Add the drained codfish to the boiling milk and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Melt the butter in a separate pan, add the flour, and stir until smooth.

  4. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the milk until creamy.

  5. Add the beaten egg, stir well, and serve immediately without further cooking.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Salt fish
Provides the main flavor and the flaky texture of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes the creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when cooked with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Egg
Adds richness and some body to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour mixture into the milk. Flour thickens only when it is evenly dispersed in liquid. Stirring it smooth before and while adding it to the hot milk helps prevent lumps and gives an even, creamy texture.

“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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