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Middle Cut of Cod

A cod fillet stuffed with breadcrumb mixture, baked and served with optional oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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: egg, milk, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: oyster

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Make a stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, parsley, onion, pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Moisten the stuffing with an egg or milk and cook it slightly.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the open part of the cod and secure with skewers.

  2. Rub the fish with a beaten egg and sprinkle with bread crumbs, pepper, and salt.

  3. Bake the cod until cooked through and serve with or without 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 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. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + eggtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together22,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together25,834 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,463 recipes

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

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, cooking through to become flaky and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the stuffing and give it a soft, cohesive texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together and, when rubbed on the fish, helps the crumb topping brown.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavor to the stuffing and helps it brown.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness to the stuffing as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook the stuffing slightly before stuffing the fish. Partly cooking the stuffing softens the onion and sets the binder, so the filling does not stay raw while the cod cooks through.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, pepper, butter, egg):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, pepper, butter, egg. 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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