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Codfish a LA Madrid

A codfish dish cooked with sweet oil, garlic, onion, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: fish

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak codfish in cold water for 4 to 6 hours, changing the water occasionally.

  2. Cut the codfish into 2-inch squares.

Cook

  1. Heat sweet oil in a pan.

  2. Add garlic and onion, then fry until fragrant.

  3. Add the codfish.

  4. Pour in the can of tomatoes.

  5. Stew slowly until the fish is thoroughly cooked.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together20,622 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

Codfish
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it cooks in the tomato sauce.
Tomatoes
Supply moisture and acidity that form the sauce and help the fish stay tender while stewing.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building a flavorful base for the stew.
Garlic
Releases aromatic compounds when fried in oil, adding fragrance to the base.

The step that matters

Stew slowly until the fish is thoroughly cooked. Gentle heat cooks the fish through while keeping its flesh tender and flaky. High heat toughens the proteins and can break the pieces apart in the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, onion):

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Welsh onionbetter flavor fit
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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