Name: Boiled Fresh Cod
Ingredients: fresh cod; coarse sea salt; drawn butter; oyster sauce

Why it works: Butter and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Boiled Fresh Cod

Ingredients

fresh cod
coarse sea salt
drawn butter
oyster sauce

Directions

Poach the fish

Place the fish in a kettle of boiling water with some coarse sea salt.
Let it simmer until cooked through.

Plate and serve

Fold a napkin on a serving dish.
Carefully turn the fish onto the napkin.
Serve with drawn butter and oyster 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.

Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,233 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Fresh cod: Forms the main body of the dish, becoming flaky and tender as it cooks gently.
Drawn butter: Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, savoury coating to the mild fish.
Oyster sauce: Adds salty, savoury depth that contrasts with the mild, delicate flavour of the fish.

“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.