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Boiled Cod

Boiled cod served with mashed potatoes, drawn butter, egg sauce, hard-boiled eggs, and a selection of seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried cod in cold water for 3 hours.

  2. Scrape and wash the cod very clean.

  3. Place the cod in a pot and cover it with cold water.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the cod for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the cod onto a fish dish and serve with mashed potatoes, drawn butter, egg sauce, and hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Provide cayenne pepper, mustard, sweet oil, pepper, vinegar, and catsup on the side.

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. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 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

Dried cod
Is the main protein; soaking rehydrates it so it becomes tender and flaky when boiled.
Eggs
Hard-boiled eggs add richness and texture alongside the fish and egg sauce.
Potatoes
Mashed potatoes provide a soft, starchy base that soaks up the butter and sauces.

The step that matters

Boil the cod for 30 minutes. Boiling too hard or too long can toughen and break up the flesh, so the cod should be kept at a gentle simmer for the stated time.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sauce, pepper, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sauce, pepper, mustard, vinegar. 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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