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Cod, Baked

Baked cod stuffed with a seasoned mixture, topped with oysters, horseradish, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cod, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Remove the middle section of the cod, weighing about 3 pounds.

  2. Make stuffing by boiling the cod for 20 minutes, then chop it small.

  3. Mix the chopped cod with bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg yolks.

  4. Bind the mixture with a little egg white and stuff it inside the fish, then sew it up.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a baking dish and pour in enough thin flour and water to fill it three-quarters full.

  2. Add the oysters, horseradish, and a little salt and pepper.

  3. Dot the fish with butter and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting frequently.

  4. When cooked, transfer the cod to a hot dish and garnish with oysters.

  5. In a saucepan, combine the gravy with anchovy sauce and vinegar, boil, and pour over the fish before serving.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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

Cod
Forms the main body of the dish and, once chopped and bound, the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the chopped fish and give the stuffing body.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing and help it set as it cooks.
Egg white
Adds binding so the stuffing holds together inside the fish.
Oysters
Add briny flavor and tender texture to the finished fish.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the fish and promotes browning as it bakes.

The step that matters

Basting the fish in the oven. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in dry heat. Frequent basting with the liquid in the dish keeps the surface moist and the flesh tender as it cooks.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, egg, oyster):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, egg, oyster. 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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