Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Cod

Boiled cod served with mashed potatoes, drawn butter or egg sauce, hard-boiled eggs, and optional cayenne pepper, mustard, sweet oil, pepper, vinegar, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried cod in cold water for 3 hours.

  2. Scrape and wash the cod very clean.

Boil and drain

  1. Place the cod in a pot and cover it with cold water.

  2. Boil the cod for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the cod on a fish dish.

Serve

  1. Serve the cod with mashed potatoes, drawn butter or egg sauce, and hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Provide cayenne pepper, mustard, sweet oil, pepper, vinegar, and catsup on the side.

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. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried cod
Main protein; soaking rehydrates it so it cooks tender and flakes when boiled.
Mashed potatoes
Starchy side that soaks up the mild, savoury flavour of the fish.
Drawn butter or egg sauce
Adds richness and moisture to the mild, lean fish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture alongside the fish.

The step that matters

Boil the cod for 30 minutes. Boiling must be gentle enough to keep the flesh in flakes; a hard boil toughens and breaks the fish apart. Timing matters because overcooking dries out the lean protein.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, pepper, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, mustard, vinegar. 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.

More boiled cod recipes

Head and Shoulders 18Fish 9Head 5with Oyster Sauce 4With Egg Sauce 3Sauce for 3 See all 89 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes