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Baked Cod’s Head and Shoulders

A baked cod head and shoulders with veal stuffing, oysters, anchovies, butter, and lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Cod’s Head and Shoulders

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Stuff the forepart of the cod with veal stuffing.

  3. Place the fish belly down in a pie dish.

Make the base

  1. Mix flour and water to create a thin mixture and pour it into the dish until three-quarters full.

  2. Sprinkle pepper over the mixture.

  3. Add oysters with their liquor and anchovies.

  4. Place small lumps of butter along the back of the cod.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven, basting the fish with melted butter until done.

  2. Remove the dish, spoon out excess liquor, and reduce it in a saucepan by boiling.

  3. Add lemon juice to the reduced sauce and pour it hot over the fish 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cod's head and shoulders
Forms the main body of the dish and is the bulk that bakes through.
Veal stuffing
Fills the forepart of the fish, adding moisture and rich flavour as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the water into a thin mixture that surrounds the fish and sets as it cooks.
Oysters
Release their liquor during baking, adding briny flavour and moisture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the fish and promotes browning when basted over the top.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the cooking liquid, adding savoury depth.

The step that matters

Reducing the oyster liquor. Boiling the strained liquor concentrates its flavour and thickens it into a sauce. If it is under-reduced, the sauce will be thin and watery; boiling too hard can make it taste overly salty.

“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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