Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Fried Cod
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Cut the cod into square pieces and remove the backbone.
Scrape the fish from the bones and press it into the larger pieces.
Season with salt and pepper, then roll in fine white cornmeal.
Fry and serve
Fry several slices of salt pork to obtain 1 cup of fat.
Heat the fat in a pan and lay the fish in it. Cook until brown on each side.
Drain on paper towels and serve hot.
Spread with butter and garnish with lemon slices.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cod
- Forms the flaky main body of the dish once cooked through.
- Fine white cornmeal
- Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns and protects the fish in hot fat.
- Salt pork fat
- Conducts heat to brown the coating and adds savory flavor to the fish.
The step that matters
Cook until brown on each side. The fish must sit in hot, not smoking, fat so the cornmeal crisps and browns before the delicate flesh overcooks. Pressing the fish into even pieces helps it cook at the same rate.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, pork, butter):
- Lemonthe original
- Mangofits about as well
- Plumfits less well
- Avocadofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, pork, butter. 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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