Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Baked Codfish and Oyster Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Remove the skin from the cod slices and arrange them in a buttered sauté pan.
Sprinkle the cod with salt, pepper, and a few drops of lemon juice.
Add ½ cup of water to the pan and cover with a thickly buttered round of white paper.
Bake and serve
Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the flesh separates from the bone.
Transfer the cod to a hot serving dish and strain any liquid from the pan over the fish.
Serve with oyster sauce in a tureen.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cod
- Forms the main flesh, which firms and flakes as the proteins set with heat.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps keep the fish moist while it bakes.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the mild fish.
The step that matters
Baking until the flesh separates from the bone. Cod turns dry and tough when overcooked. Pulling it as soon as the flesh flakes away from the bone keeps it moist, because the proteins tighten and squeeze out water as they continue to heat.
“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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