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Broiled Cod

A simple broiled cod fillet served with butter, pepper, salt, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Broiled Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Dust the cod pieces with flour.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the cod with the skin side facing the heat.

  2. Turn the cod when it begins to brown.

  3. Once cooked through, transfer to a platter.

  4. Top with butter, pepper, salt, and a little catsup.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender pieces under the broiler.
Flour
Dusting helps the surface brown and gives a light, slightly crisp exterior.

The step that matters

Turn the cod when it begins to brown. Turning at the first sign of browning helps the fish cook through evenly without drying out or burning on the top surface, since the broiler heat is intense and close.

“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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