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Cod Pie

A savory pie with cod, broth, cream, and optional oysters or mackerel, topped with a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cod Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Salt the cod well and let it sit overnight.

  2. Wash the cod and season it with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Place the cod in a dish, add butter and broth.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. Combine broth, cream, flour, butter, lemon zest, and nutmeg in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Cover with a pie crust and bake until done.

  3. Add oysters or parsley if desired.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Middle cod
Forms the main body of the pie and is flaked into tender pieces when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the cream and broth mixture into a smooth, sauce-like consistency.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps carry flavor through the dish.
Pie crust
Encloses the fish so it cooks in steam, keeping it moist under the pastry.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil while whisking. Flour thickens only when heated, and it can clump if added to liquid without being whisked smoothly. Bringing the mixture to a boil activates the starch so the sauce turns smooth and thick rather than lumpy or thin.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, nutmeg, butter, cream, flour, lemon, oyster):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, butter, cream, flour, lemon, oyster. 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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