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Baked Cod

A whole cod stuffed with a breadcrumb mixture, baked with salt pork and served in a butter‑flour gravy with catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Baked Cod

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Cod

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, pepper, coarse sea salt, parsley, onion, and chopped salt pork.

  3. Combine the dressing with the egg and fill the body of the fish.

  4. Sew the fish up.

  5. Place the sewn fish in a large pan.

  6. Lay strips of salt pork across the fish for flavor.

  7. Add water and a little salt to the pan.

Bake and baste

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours, basting often with a mixture of butter and flour.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Dish the fish.

  2. Stir a little flour and butter into the gravy.

  3. Add tomato or walnut catsup.

  4. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  5. Pour the gravy over the fish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 and is the centerpiece that the stuffing fills.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds its shape when served.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape during baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stuffing and as strips laid over the fish.
Butter and flour
Basting mixture that adds richness and browning to the fish; flour thickens the gravy.
Tomato or walnut catsup
Adds acidity and savory depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Sewing the fish up and baking it whole. If the stuffed fish is not sewn closed tightly, the dressing can leak out and dry during the long bake, so the fish cooks unevenly and loses its moisture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, pepper, parsley, pork, egg, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, pepper, parsley, pork, 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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