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 ↓
Fried Cod
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sprinkle the cod slices with pepper and salt, and let them sit for an hour.
Dip the cod in milk, then coat thoroughly with flour.
Fry and serve
Fry the cod in plenty of hot fat for about twenty minutes.
Drain the fried cod on kitchen paper and place on a hot dish.
Serve with maitre d'hotel butter underneath and maitre d'hotel sauce around.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,078 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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
- Slices of cod
- The main protein, which becomes flaky and moist when cooked through.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating that crisps during frying and seals in moisture.
- Milk
- Helps the flour adhere evenly to the fish before frying.
- Hot fat
- Conducts heat to cook the coating quickly, creating a golden, crisp crust.
The step that matters
Frying in plenty of hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough or there is too little of it, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy instead of crisp. Using plenty of fat keeps its temperature steady when the cold fish goes in.
“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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