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Cod's Head

Roasted cod head served with a sauce of butter, anchovy, egg yolks, shrimp or pickled cockles, red wine, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,557 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare and season

  1. Clean the cod's head thoroughly and score it with a knife.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt on it and place it in a large tin oven or a pan before the fire.

  3. Discard any water that comes from the fish for the first half hour.

  4. Season with nutmeg, cloves, mace, and salt, then flour it and baste with butter.

Roast

  1. After some time, turn the fish, season, and baste the other side.

  2. Turn it often, baste frequently, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Roast for four to five hours if it's a large head.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare melted butter with an anchovy and the boiled liver of the fish, mixing well.

  2. Add the egg yolks and drain through a sieve back into the saucepan.

  3. Stir in shrimp or pickled cockles, red wine, and lemon juice, simmering for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Combine the sauce with the roasted head in a large dish and serve hot.

  5. Garnish with fried fish, lemon, and grated horseradish.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + macetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + shrimptop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Anchovy + shrimptop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together432 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Bastes the fish, keeping its surface moist and helping it brown as it roasts.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a rich, smooth body when gently heated.
Flour
Coats the fish, helping the surface brown and form a crust during roasting.
Anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the melted butter sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Drain the sauce through a sieve after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so the sauce should be kept warm rather than boiling, and straining removes any lumps or bits before serving.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, mace, flour, butter, egg, anchovy, shrimp):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Allspiceabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, mace, flour, butter, egg, anchovy, shrimp. 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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