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To Boil Cod Fish

A boiled cod fish seasoned with salt, saltpetre, and served with horseradish, oyster sauce, melted butter, or anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil Cod Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cod fish and clean the inside thoroughly, especially the backbone.

  2. Place the fish in a fish kettle and cover it with cold water mixed with 5 ounces of coarse sea salt and ¼ ounce of saltpetre.

Cook

  1. Heat over moderate fire, skimming off any scum that forms.

  2. Boil gently until done: 20 to 30 minutes for medium size, 40 to 50 minutes for large.

Serve

  1. Drain the fish and serve on a hot napkin, garnished with liver, roe, and lightly scraped horseradish.

  2. Serve with oyster sauce, melted butter, or anchovy sauce.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  5. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cod fish
Is the main item poached whole, so its flesh cooks gently in the simmering liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water and gives the flesh a firmer, more seasoned surface.
Saltpetre
Adds a curing effect that helps the flesh keep its colour and firmness.

The step that matters

Boil gently until done. Boiling hard breaks the delicate flesh apart and makes it dry and rough, while gentle simmering keeps it moist and intact. Size sets the time, so check doneness against the stated range.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, horse, oyster, sauce, butter, anchovy):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Radishthe original
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, horse, oyster, sauce, butter, anchovy. 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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