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 fillets with salt and pepper.
Place the fillets between a wire grill.
Cook and serve
Broil over a clear fire until cooked through.
Rub a little butter over each fillet.
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 protein, setting into flakes as it cooks through over direct heat.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the surface of the fish, carrying flavor as it melts.
The step that matters
Broil until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and dries out past doneness, so it should be checked early and removed once the flesh flakes easily.
“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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