Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Codfish with Potatoes

A stew of codfish and mashed potatoes seasoned with butter, milk, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Stewed Codfish with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the codfish in tepid water for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  2. Boil the codfish and shred it into pieces.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the shredded codfish with mashed potatoes, butter, and enough milk to make it moist.

  2. Heat boiling water in a chafing dish to prevent scorching.

  3. Stir the mixture until very hot.

  4. Add pepper and salt to taste.

Serve

  1. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

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 and provides its savory, flaky texture.
Mashed potatoes
Add body and softness, helping bind the fish into a cohesive mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother mouthfeel and flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture stays soft rather than dry.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture until very hot. Keeping the mixture in a hot water bath and stirring it evenly warms it through without scorching the bottom. Heat that is uneven or too low leaves cool pockets, while direct high heat can dry or scorch the proteins and starches.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes