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Salt Cod, Ft LA Creme

Salt cod baked in a creamy sauce and topped with browned butter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salt Cod, Ft LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the salt cod in water for 24 hours, changing the water several times.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from the cod.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Melt 2 oz of butter in a saucepan without browning it.

  2. Gradually mix in 1 cup of milk or cream, stirring with a wooden spoon.

  3. Add the cod pieces to the sauce and let it simmer uncovered until thick.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to an oven-safe dish.

  2. Cover the cod with a thick layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Melt 1 oz of butter and pour it over the bread crumbs.

  4. Add another layer of bread crumbs on top of the butter.

  5. Bake until golden and serve in the dish it was baked in.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod
Provides the main flesh, which is firm and flaky once soaked and desalted.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and adds richness to the buttered crumb topping.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and a smooth, creamy texture.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven and contrasts the soft sauce.

The step that matters

Melt the butter without browning it. Browned butter changes the flavor and color of the sauce, and overheating can make the milk or cream separate or scorch on the pan base. Keeping the heat gentle lets the liquid thicken smoothly when added.

“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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