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Entree of Crimped Cod

Fried crimped cod fillets coated in a sweet oil and white wine batter, served with fried parsley and oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Entree of Crimped Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Boil a pot of salted water.

  2. Add the cod and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the cod and let it cool, then flake it into pieces.

Batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sweet oil, white wine, and a little salt to make a batter.

  2. Heat lard in a frying pan until hot.

  3. Dip each flake of cod into the batter and fry until golden brown.

  4. Drain on paper towels and serve with fried parsley and oyster sauce.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. White wine + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White wine + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together518 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Crimped cod
Forms the main protein, which turns firm and flaky after boiling and frying.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter that coats the cod and crisps into a golden crust when fried.
Sweet oil
Adds fat to the batter, helping it brown and stay tender rather than tough.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the batter, and its alcohol evaporates as it fries.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and gives the coating a crisp, browned surface.

The step that matters

Let the cod cool before battering. Cod that is still hot or wet will release steam and water into the batter, making it soggy and causing it to slide off in the hot fat. Cooling and drying the flakes helps the batter cling and crisp.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, white wine, oyster, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, white wine, oyster, sauce. 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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