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Cod Soup

A soup made with cod, stock, onions, herbs, flour, butter, wine, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Cod Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine cod pieces, stock, onion, bay leaf, parsley, thyme, and marjoram in a saucepan.

  2. Cook steadily for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, mix flour and butter to create a thickening.

  2. Add the thickening to the strained soup.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Stir in white wine and oysters.

  5. Simmer gently for 10 minutes until oysters are cooked.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Provides the main body of flesh that flakes into the soup and gives its savory base.
Flour
Combines with butter to thicken the strained soup into a smoother, heavier texture.
Butter
Mixed with flour to form a roux-style thickening and adds richness to the soup.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic brightness that balances the rich stock and seafood.
Oysters
Add briny, delicate seafood flavor and tender texture when gently cooked at the end.
Veal or white stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after adding the oysters. Oysters toughen and shrink when boiled hard, so a gentle simmer keeps them tender while cooking them through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, veal, parsley, thyme, marjoram, flour, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, veal, parsley, thyme, marjoram, flour, butter. 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.

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