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Cod Pie

A savory pie made with cod, butter, broth, cream, and a sauce of flour, butter, lemon zest, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cod Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Salt the cod well and let it sit overnight.

  2. Wash the cod, then season with pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cod in a dish, add butter, and pour in some broth.

  2. Cover with a crust and bake until done.

Make and add the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine broth, cream, flour, butter, lemon zest, and nutmeg in a pot.

  2. Bring the sauce to a boil and pour it into the pie through a hole in the center.

  3. Add oysters or parsley if desired.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the flaky main body of the pie filling.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth and cream into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the pie.
Broth
Provides savoury liquid that moistens the fish and forms the sauce base.

The step that matters

Salting the cod overnight. Salt draws moisture out of the fish and then the flesh reabsorbs it along with some salt, which seasons the cod deeply and firms its texture. Too little time or salt leaves the fish bland, while too much makes it overly salty.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, nutmeg, butter, lemon, cream, flour, oyster):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, butter, lemon, cream, flour, oyster. 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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