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Cod Head, Browned

Browned cod heads served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cod Head, Browned

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heads

  1. Remove the eyes from the cod heads and wash them thoroughly.

  2. Drain the heads.

  3. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the heads.

  4. Let the salted heads sit for 1 to 2 hours.

  5. Boil the heads in water for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on their size.

  6. Remove the heads from the water.

  7. Drain the heads.

  8. Remove the skin from the heads.

Brown and serve

  1. Dredge flour evenly over the heads.

  2. Place the heads before a clear fire.

  3. Baste the heads with dripping or butter until lightly browned.

  4. Thicken 1 cup of the boiling liquid with a lump of butter rolled in flour, stirring until smooth.

  5. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to the sauce.

  6. Serve the sauce in a tureen.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter 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 heads
Form the main body of the dish, holding their shape while cooking and browning.
Flour
Forms a thin dry coating that helps the surface brown and crisp when basted.
Dripping or butter
Adds fat that carries heat to the surface, promoting even golden browning and richness.
1 cup of the boiling liquid
Serves as the base of the sauce, thickened with butter and flour for body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Basting until lightly browned. Fat and flour must coat the surface evenly; too little heat or fat leaves pale, soggy skin, while excess heat can scorch the flour before the flesh is heated through.

“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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