Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Broiled Cod
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Season the cod slices with salt and pepper.
Place the slices between a wire gridiron.
Broil and serve
Broil over a clear fire until cooked through.
Rub a little butter over each fillet before serving.
Serve very hot in an entree dish.
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.
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 to a flaky, tender texture under heat.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the cooked fish surface.
The step that matters
Broil until cooked through. Cod is lean and dries out quickly under intense heat, so it should be checked often and removed as soon as it turns opaque and flakes easily. Overcooking makes the flesh tough and dry.
“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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