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Codfish in Cream

A creamy codfish dish made with salted cod, milk, butter, flour, egg, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Codfish in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Shred and soak the salted codfish overnight.

  2. Drain the codfish and place it in a stew pan.

  3. Cover the codfish with cold water and bring to a boil.

  4. Drain the codfish.

  5. Cover again with water and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. Add the milk to the codfish.

  2. Rub the flour smooth in the butter and add to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the minced hard-boiled egg, pepper, and parsley.

  4. Bring to a boil once and serve.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Codfish
Provides the salty, savory flavor and the flaky texture of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream and keeps the dish moist.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly without lumps.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds body and a mild, rich flavor to the cream.

The step that matters

Rub the flour smooth in the butter before adding it. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps. Working it into the butter first coats each particle, so it disperses evenly and thickens the milk into a smooth cream.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, egg, pepper. 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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