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Cod Sound Patties

A savory dish of cod sounds mixed with white sauce, cream, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 12,257 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

Prepare the sounds

  1. Soak salted cod sounds in warm water for several hours.

  2. Wash fresh sounds in warm water.

  3. Scrape off the dark skin from the fresh sounds.

  4. Cover the sounds with equal parts white stock and milk, add salt, pepper, and mace, then simmer gently for about 30 minutes.

  5. Drain the sounds.

  6. Cut the sounds into large dice.

Make the filling

  1. Stir the cream into the white sauce.

  2. Gently mix in the prepared sounds.

  3. If desired, add blanched and halved oysters for extra flavor.

Fill and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into puff pastry cases.

  2. Cover with pastry.

  3. Heat thoroughly.

  4. Serve.

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. Pepper + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,786 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + macetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Cream + macetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together4,009 recipes
  5. Sauce + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod sounds
Provide the main flaky, meaty filling that gives the patties their body.
White sauce
Binds the filling and adds a smooth, creamy moisture that keeps it from drying out.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier texture to the white sauce.
Puff pastry cases
Form a crisp, flaky shell that browns in the oven around the moist filling.

The step that matters

Simmering the sounds in stock and milk. Simmering gently keeps the sounds tender and moist; boiling hard toughens the protein and can make them dry and rubbery.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Macethe original
  4. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cream, milk, pepper, oyster. 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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