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 ↓
Baked Codfish
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 fish
Soak, boil, and pick the salt fish as you would for fish balls.
Make the mixture
Mix the fish with an equal quantity of mashed or chopped potatoes, butter, and warm milk until soft.
Transfer the mixture to a buttered dish.
Rub butter over the top and sprinkle with sifted flour.
Bake and serve
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes, until rich brown.
Prepare a sauce with drawn butter and add the sliced hard-boiled eggs, serving in a gravy boat.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Fish + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,432 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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
- Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its savoury flavour.
- Potatoes
- Add bulk and softness, helping bind the fish into a spoonable mixture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.
- Warm milk
- Softens the mixture and keeps it moist during baking.
- Sifted flour
- Dusted on top, it helps create a golden-brown crust when baked.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Add texture and mild richness to the sauce served alongside.
The step that matters
Bake until rich brown. The mixture must be soft enough to stay moist, but the top needs enough baking to brown. Browning comes from the butter and flour on the surface reacting with dry heat, so the cook should watch the top rather than rely only on the timer.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, milk, flour, egg):
- Potatothe original
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Chivefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, milk, 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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