Name: Cod, Doiled
Ingredients: 1 small cod fish (or a large one); 1 handful coarse sea salt; Garnish: liver, smelt, roe of the fish, scraped horseradish, lemon slices, parsley sprigs; Optional: fried oysters, small fried fish, or fried whitings; Anchovy or oyster sauce for serving

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

1 small cod fish (or a large one)
1 handful coarse sea salt
Garnish: liver, smelt, roe of the fish, scraped horseradish, lemon slices, parsley sprigs
Optional: fried oysters, small fried fish, or fried whitings
Anchovy or oyster sauce for serving

Directions

Prepare

Tie the head and shoulders of the fish securely.
Place the fish in a kettle and cover it completely with cold water.
Add a handful of coarse sea salt to the water.

Boil and drain

Boil the fish for 20 minutes for a small fish, or 30 minutes for a large fish.
Once cooked, drain the fish and remove the string.

Serve

Serve garnished with liver, smelt, roe, scraped horseradish, lemon slices, and parsley.
Optionally, serve with fried oysters, small fried fish, or fried whitings.
Serve with anchovy or 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,036 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Fish + oystertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Roe + oystertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together58 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together562 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Fish + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,855 recipes

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

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, cooked gently in salted water until flaky.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the poaching water so the fish is flavoured as it cooks.

Flavor stand-ins for the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, liver, smelt, roe, lemon, parsley, oyster):

Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
Shallotabout as good a flavor fit
Horseradishthe original
Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, liver, smelt, roe, lemon, parsley, 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.