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Codfish Soup

A soup made with codfish, milk, cornstarch, egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Codfish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Boil the 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 cornstarch and bring to a boil.

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

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then 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 + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Codfish
Provides the main flavour and the soup's savoury, fish-based body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the soup is built on and thickened in.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk into a smoother, more body-filled soup.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps enrich the soup's texture when stirred in off heat.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens and can curdle or scramble if it touches boiling liquid. Removing the pan from heat before stirring it in keeps 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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