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To Hake Cod’s Head

A baked cod head served with a sauce of wine, ketchup, shrimp, oysters, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,557 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

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 the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C).

  2. Clean the cod's head and place it in a baking pan.

  3. Add the sweet herbs, onion with cloves, mace, black pepper, bruised nutmeg, water, lemon peel, and horseradish.

  4. Dust the head with flour, grate nutmeg over it, and dot with butter.

  5. Bake until cooked through.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove from the oven and transfer to a serving dish, keeping it warm over boiling water.

  2. Pour the cooking liquid into a saucepan and boil for 3–4 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid and add red wine, ketchup, shrimp, oysters or mussels, and mushroom pickle.

  4. Stir in the butter rolled in flour until thick and boiling.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fish and garnish with toast triangles, lemon slices, horseradish, and parsley.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + macetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 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

Cod's head
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming moist and flaky as it bakes.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the sauce to a smooth, rich consistency when stirred into the boiling liquid.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce as it simmers.
Shrimp
Adds savoury seafood flavour and body to the sauce.
Oysters or mussels
Add briny seafood flavour and tenderness to the sauce.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness, acidity and savoury tang to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour into the boiling liquid. Flour must be fully dispersed and the liquid brought to a boil so starch swells and thickens the sauce evenly; adding it to a cool or unstirred liquid causes lumps and a thin, floury sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, mace, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, horseradish, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, mace, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, horseradish, flour. 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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