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To Stew Cod

A cod stew simmered with wine, water, lemon, herbs, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

  1. Place the cod slices in the bottom of a large stewpan.

  2. Season with nutmeg, beaten pepper, coarse sea salt, sweet herbs, and onion.

  3. Add white wine and water, cover, and simmer gently for 5 to 6 minutes.

  4. Squeeze in the lemon juice, add oysters and strained liquor, and a blade or two of mace.

  5. Cover and simmer gently, shaking the pan often.

  6. Remove the sweet herbs and onion when done, serve the cod, and pour the sauce over it.

  7. Garnish with 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 + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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, becoming flaky and tender as it gently simmers.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavour to the cooking liquid, lightly seasoning the fish.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the sauce as they cook in the liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. Vigorous boiling toughens and breaks up delicate fish flesh, while gentle simmering cooks it evenly and keeps the slices intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, pepper, white wine, lemon, oyster, mace. 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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