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Stewed Codfish

A codfish stew made with water, sweet milk, butter, flour or cornstarch, cold milk, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stewed Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak pieces of codfish in cold water for several hours.

  2. Pick the codfish into fine pieces and place in a skillet with water.

  3. Boil for a few minutes, then pour off the water and add fresh water.

  4. Boil again and drain off the water as before.

Make the stew

  1. Add plenty of sweet milk and a good-sized piece of butter.

  2. Mix a little flour or cornstarch with cold milk until smooth like cream, then add to the skillet.

  3. Stir well and remove from heat.

  4. Quickly stir in the yolks of three beaten eggs and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Codfish
Provides the main flesh and savoury flavour of the stew.
Flour or cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the milk sauce.
Egg yolks
Enriches and thickens the sauce when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Quickly stir in the yolks of three beaten eggs. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the stew is still boiling hot when they go in, they can scramble into small lumps. Removing the pan from heat first and stirring quickly keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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