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Scalloped Codfish and Cheese

A baked dish of flaked salt cod simmered in a butter‑flour milk sauce and topped with cheese.

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

Scalloped Codfish and Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the salt codfish in tepid water for 6 hours.

  2. Boil the soaked codfish.

  3. Once cold, flake the fish with a fork and season with pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk to boiling.

  2. Stir in the butter and flour until smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Combine the milk mixture with the flaked fish in a baking dish.

  2. Top with grated cheese.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Salt codfish
Provides the main flavour and flaky texture of the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the fish together.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it is heated.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour into the hot milk until smooth. Flour must be fully dispersed in the liquid before or as it thickens; if added in clumps or to cold milk it forms lumps that stay in the sauce. Stirring keeps the starch evenly distributed so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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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