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Codfish on Toast

A codfish dish served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the shredded codfish in cold water in a skillet and bring to a boil.

  2. Drain the codfish in a colander and return it to the skillet.

Make the sauce

  1. Add ¼ cup cold milk, 2 tablespoons butter, and ¼ teaspoon pepper to the codfish.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon flour with a little cold milk until smooth, then add to the skillet.

  3. Let it boil for a moment, then serve over buttered toast on a platter.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body of the dish, providing savory flavor and a flaky texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cold milk into a smooth sauce that coats the codfish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess once thickened.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into cold milk first. Flour dropped directly into hot liquid clumps, because its starch surface hydrates unevenly. Whisking it smooth in cold milk before adding it lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

“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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