Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cod Scalloped
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Pound enough cold dressed cod to nearly fill your shells.
Beat the egg yolk and pour it over the cod.
Add the skinned shrimps, salt, pepper, and a little butter.
Bake and brown
Do not fill the shells completely; strew fine bread crumbs over them.
Drizzle melted butter on top.
Brown them in a Dutch oven before the fire.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,931 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold dressed cod
- Forms the main body of the filling, providing flaky texture and bulk.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the pounded cod together so the filling holds its shape when cooked.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumb topping brown.
- Fine bread crumbs
- Forms a crisp, golden topping that browns during cooking.
The step that matters
Brown them in a Dutch oven before the fire. Browning needs steady, direct heat. Too little heat leaves the crumbs pale and the filling underdone, while too much can scorch the crumb topping before the cod is cooked through.
“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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