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Codfish Stew

A stew of codfish simmered in milk and thickened with flour, optionally finished with egg and butter, served with baked potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Place the codfish pieces in a stewpan and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then drain the water.

Make the stew

  1. Add 1 pint of milk and heat until hot.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold milk or water to make a smooth paste, then add to the stew to thicken.

  3. If desired, stir in a beaten egg just before serving.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with butter and serve with baked potatoes.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main flavour and firm, flaky pieces that stay distinct in the stew.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the stew and gives it a creamy, mellow body.
Flour
Thickens the milk as its starch swells with heat, giving the stew body.
Egg
Optional; when beaten in and heated, it adds richness and slight thickening.

The step that matters

Thickening the stew with flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold liquid first; added dry or lumpy, it clumps and cannot thicken evenly. Starch needs heat to swell and thicken the milk.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, 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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