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Baked Cod

A cod fillet stuffed with a breadcrumb and salt pork mixture, baked with butter and tomato sauce.

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 stuffing

  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.

  4. Fill the body of the cod with the mixture and sew it up.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a large pan and lay strips of salt pork across it.

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

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours, basting often with butter.

  4. Once done, dish the fish.

  5. In the gravy, mix flour, butter, and catsup, bring to a boil, and pour 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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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, cooked whole and stuffed.
Bread crumbs
Bind the stuffing and absorb juices, giving it a moist, soft texture.
Egg
Binds the dressing together so it holds its shape inside the fish.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stuffing and melts over the fish as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the fish as it is basted during baking.
Flour
Thickens the catsup and butter into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Basting the fish with butter during baking. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and encourages gentle browning, while the fish cooks through. Fish is lean and dries out quickly, so skipping basting risks a dry result.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, parsley, pork, egg, butter, flour. 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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