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A Fresh Cod's Head

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Simmer the head

  1. Place the cleaned cod's head in a saucepan with 2 cups of water and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

Thicken and finish

  1. Dredge the cod head in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter.

  3. Add more water if necessary.

  4. 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
Gives the broth its body and savory flavor as it simmers slowly.
Flour
Coats the fish and thickens the broth as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder, silkier mouthfeel to the broth.

The step that matters

Dredge the cod head in flour. Flour coats the surface and thickens the liquid when it cooks. Added in a heavy, uneven layer it can clump in the broth instead of blending smoothly, so the head should be lightly and evenly coated.

“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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