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Boiled Cod

A cod fillet boiled with coarse sea salt, served with egg sauce and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scrape and wash the cod clean.

  2. Rub a handful of coarse sea salt into the fish.

  3. Flour a cloth and pin the fish inside it.

Boil and serve

  1. Put the wrapped fish into boiling water and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Carefully remove the fish from the cloth and serve with egg sauce.

  3. Serve with potatoes as the only vegetable.

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. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + potatotop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Cod
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, moist portions.
Flour
Dusted on the cloth, it helps keep the fish's surface from sticking to the wrapping.
Egg sauce
Adds richness and a creamy contrast to the mild, delicate fish.

The step that matters

Boiling the wrapped fish for 30 minutes. Boiling at a steady simmer cooks the fish through gently, so the flesh turns opaque and flakes without drying. Too vigorous a boil can break the fish apart and toughen it.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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