Skip to main content
Main

Cod's Head and Shoulders

A cod head is simmered, glazed, and served with a stock of lobster, oysters, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the cod head

  1. Wash the cod's head clean.

  2. Pour boiling water over the head to remove slime, then carefully remove the slime with a knife without breaking the skin, and wipe the head clean.

  3. Place it on a strainer in a pot of boiling water, add the salt and vinegar, and ensure the head is fully covered.

  4. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes.

  5. Let it drain in a deep dish.

Glaze and brown

  1. Glaze the head with beaten egg yolks.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, lemon peel, pepper, and salt.

  3. Dot with butter.

  4. Place before the fire to brown, basting with butter and adding more bread crumbs and parsley.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare beef or veal stock or fish stock.

  2. Thicken the stock with flour mixed into butter.

  3. Add oysters, lobster meat, white wine, and lemon juice to the stock.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. Skim the sauce.

  6. Pour part into the dish with the fish, serving the rest in a sauce 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Bread + oystertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,544 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + beeftop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod's head
Forms the main body of the dish, holding its shape and flesh through poaching and browning.
Egg yolks
Glaze the surface, setting and browning as the head is placed before the fire.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the glazed fish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs and crust brown while basting.
Beef or veal stock
Forms the savory liquid base of the sauce, thickened with flour and butter.
Oysters
Add briny flavor and tender texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the cod head. Simmering for 30 to 40 minutes in salted, vinegared water must stay gentle and keep the head fully covered. Vigorous boiling can break the skin and make the flesh fall apart, and the flesh needs to cook through evenly before it is glazed and browned.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, egg, bread, pepper, butter, beef, oyster):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Grapeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Figabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Plumabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, bread, pepper, butter, beef, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipesIllustration of Roast BeefIllustrationRoast Beef211 recipesIllustration of Beef LoafIllustrationBeef Loaf175 recipes