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Boiled Codfish and Oyster Sauce

A boiled codfish served with oyster sauce and blanched oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and fish work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 496 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Codfish and Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the fish in cold, salted water for 30 minutes before cooking.

  2. Dredge the fish in flour and wrap it in a clean cloth, sewing the edges to fully enclose it.

Cook

  1. Place the wrapped fish in boiling salted water with cloves, peppercorns, and lemon peel.

  2. Check doneness by gently pulling on the fins; they should come out easily.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fish on a folded napkin and serve with oyster sauce.

  2. Blanch the oysters in hot oyster liquor before serving.

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. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Main protein that turns flaky and opaque as its proteins set during cooking.
Oysters
Provide the briny, savoury flavour of the sauce served with the fish.
Oyster liquor
Carries the oyster flavour into the sauce and gently warms the oysters.
Lemon peel
Adds fragrant citrus aroma to the poaching water, lightly перfuming the fish.

The step that matters

Checking doneness by the fins. Cod proteins set and turn opaque within a narrow temperature range, and overcooking squeezes out moisture, leaving the flesh dry and stringy. Testing early and gently keeps the fish moist and flaky.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, lemon, oyster, fish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, lemon, oyster, fish. 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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