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A LA Creme

Cod fillets served in a creamy mushroom sauce with shallots, parsley, and a hint of anchovy essence, lemon, sugar, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Sprinkle the cod with coarse sea salt on both sides and let it sit for an hour.

  2. Boil water and add the cod, cooking until done.

  3. Remove the cod and break it into flakes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the shallot, parsley, and mushrooms.

  2. Add the stock and simmer for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in enough flour to thicken, then add clear stock and cream to achieve a white sauce.

  4. Let it simmer for a few minutes, then add anchovy essence, lemon juice, sugar, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Fold in the cod flakes and keep warm without boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with croutons.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,718 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,960 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Provides the flaky, mild fish that forms the main body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the shallot and mushrooms.
Flour
Thickens the stock and cream into a smooth, coating white sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, mellow texture.
Mushrooms
Contribute savoury, earthy flavour and some texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold in the cod flakes and keep warm without boiling. Boiling a cream sauce can cause it to separate and turn grainy, and it can toughen the delicate fish. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and the cod tender.

“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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