Name: Codfish Toast
Ingredients: 6 slices of bread; 1 cup boiling milk; 1 cup cooked codfish, soaked and flaked; ¼ cup cream or milk; 1 tablespoon batter; 1 cup mock cream

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Codfish Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast by dipping each slice in boiling milk.
Layer the soaked and flaked codfish over the toast in a dish.
Add a layer of toast, alternating with codfish until the dish is full.
Pour the mock cream over the top.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,789 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).