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To Stew Cod

A cod stew with white wine, gravy, oysters, and spices, thickened with butter and flour, served hot with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Stew Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Layer thin slices of cod in a dish.

  2. Add white wine, gravy, oysters, their liquor, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Let it stew until nearly done.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken with butter rolled in flour.

  2. Stew a little longer and serve hot, garnished with sliced lemon.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that brightens the rich stew.
Gravy
Provides the savoury base and body of the liquid.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the stew.
Oyster liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated oyster flavour to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour thicken with a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells during simmering.

The step that matters

Thickening with butter rolled in flour. Flour added in lumps clumps when it hits hot liquid. Working the butter and flour into the simmering stew and letting it cook briefly lets the starch swell evenly, giving a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, oyster, pepper, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, oyster, pepper, butter, flour, lemon. 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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