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Cod, Fried a LA Maitre D'hotel

Fried cod served with a parsley butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the cod slices in salt water for 30 minutes, then drain and dry them.

  2. Cover the cod with seasoned flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cod in boiling fat for a few minutes until golden.

  2. Arrange the fried cod in a pyramid on a hot dish.

  3. In a saucepan, combine parsley, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

  4. Add water if the sauce thickens too much, then bring to a boil.

  5. Pour the sauce around the cod 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together28,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Cod
Forms the main body of the dish; its flesh cooks through and flakes when fried.
Flour
Seasoned flour coats the cod, and flour in the sauce thickens the butter into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and carries the parsley.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the buttery sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the cod in boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the flour coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy, and the fish can overcook before the crust sets.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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