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Soup

A Dinneb Foe a Dyspeptic

A broth made by simmering a cod head with water, salt, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 122,858 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Start the broth

  1. Place the cleaned cod's head in a saucepan with 1 pint of water and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

Finish the broth

  1. Dredge the cod head in a little flour and add a small piece of butter.

  2. Add more water if necessary and simmer for another hour.

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.

  1. Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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's head
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin during long simmering, giving the broth body and richness.
Flour
Light coating of starch that slightly thickens the liquid and helps give it a fuller texture.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the broth a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, not at a rolling boil. A gentle simmer lets gelatin and flavor draw out slowly. A hard boil churns fat into the liquid, making the broth cloudy and greasy.

“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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