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Codfish Soup

A soup made with codfish, milk, corn starch, egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Codfish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Boil codfish in water for a few minutes to freshen it.

  2. Boil the codfish again for 15 minutes, then strain into a quart of milk.

Make the soup

  1. Thicken the milk with corn starch and bring to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk.

  3. Season to taste and add the codfish and Worcestershire 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Corn + saucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + saucetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main flavor and the soup's savory body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the soup body.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and adds creaminess when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens and can curdle or scramble if it meets very hot liquid. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring it in helps keep the soup smooth and creamy.

“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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