Skip to main content
Main

Crimped Slices of Cod, in Matelotte Normande

A dish of thin cod slices baked with butter, wine, oyster liquor, and served in a Mamelotte Normande sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cod

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Spread butter on a silver dish and place the cod slices on it.

  3. Season the cod with pepper and coarse sea salt, then sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  4. Moisten the fish with French white wine and oyster liquor.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish with buttered paper and bake for 30 minutes, basting occasionally.

  2. Once cooked, pour the liquor into a prepared ragout and sauce the cod with it.

  3. Garnish with fried smelts, large crayfish, and glazed oval croutons before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + white winetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + oystertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Pepper + white winetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,223 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. White wine + oystertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Thin slices of cod
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks into flakes as it bakes.
Butter
Enriches the fish and keeps it moist in the dish during baking.
French white wine
Adds moisture and acidity that gently steams the fish and builds the flavour of the liquor.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and a briny flavour that seasons the fish as it bakes.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, white wine, oyster):

  1. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, white wine, oyster. 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.

You might also like

Illustration of Mock Oyster SoupIllustrationMock Oyster Soup21 recipesIllustration of Corn FrittersIllustrationCorn Fritters6 recipesIllustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipesIllustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipes