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Codfish Toast

A toast topped with a cooked codfish mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread 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 fish

  1. Soak the codfish in cold water until sufficiently fresh, then drain well.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in the flour, sweet cream, milk, and egg. Season with pepper.

  2. Heat the mixture slowly, stirring well until it scalds.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare a nice moist toast, well seasoned.

  2. Place the toast on a platter and top it with the fish mixture.

  3. Serve immediately.

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main flavor and body of the topping.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream mixture as it heats.
Egg
Helps bind and thicken the mixture as it heats.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat for a smoother, silkier texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid body to the creamy mixture.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture slowly, stirring well until it scalds. Egg proteins can curdle or turn grainy if the mixture heats too fast or is not stirred. Slow, constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth while the flour and egg thicken it evenly.

“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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