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Fresh Cod, Boiled

A simple boiled fresh cod seasoned with salt, vinegar, horseradish, parsley, lemon, and cod's liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub a little coarse sea salt down the bone of the cod.

  2. Tie a fold or two of wide tape around the thick part.

  3. Place the cod in a fish kettle.

  4. Cover the fish with cold water.

Cook

  1. Bring the water to the verge of boiling.

  2. Let it simmer gently for 30 minutes or more.

  3. Skim the surface well and carefully.

Serve

  1. Drain the cod and slip it onto a folded napkin.

  2. Garnish the dish with parsley, lemon, and horseradish.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Vinegar + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Horseradish + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + livertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh cod
Main protein; gentle poaching keeps the flesh moist and tender rather than tough.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, never a hard boil. A rolling boil agitates the fish and can break up or toughen the delicate flaky flesh, so keeping the water just below the boil gives a moist, intact result.

Flavor stand-ins for the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, parsley, lemon, liver):

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, parsley, lemon, liver. 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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