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Dessert

Fillet of Cod a LA Creme

Cod fillets served with cream béchamel sauce, lemon juice, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fillet of Cod a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cod

  1. Fillet and boil the cod fillets until cooked through.

  2. Place the fillets in an entree dish.

Sauce and serve

  1. Pour the cream béchamel sauce over the fillets.

  2. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and season with coarse sea salt.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sauce + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cod fillets
Provides the flaky, mild fish that forms the body of the dish.
Cream béchamel sauce
Adds moisture and richness, coating the fish and keeping it from drying out.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the fish.

The step that matters

Boil the cod until cooked through. Fish proteins set and firm as they heat, and overcooking squeezes out moisture, leaving the flesh dry and tough. Stop as soon as the flesh is opaque and flakes easily.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sauce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce. 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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