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Morue K LA Crème — Salt Cod À LA Crème

Salt cod flaked in a creamy sauce of butter, flour, garlic, and milk, optionally enriched with egg yolks and topped with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Morue K LA Crème — Salt Cod À LA Crème

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Boil the salt cod in water until cooked, then drain and flake it.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour, garlic, and coarse pepper; stir to combine.

  3. Gradually moisten with milk or cream, stirring until thickened.

  4. Add the flaked cod to the sauce and heat through.

  5. If desired, mix in the egg yolks and top with grated bread.

Brown and serve

  1. Brown the top under a broiler or salamander 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt cod
Provides the main flaky protein and savoury, salty flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk or cream into a smooth sauce by gelatinising its starch.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce further, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Gradually moisten with milk or cream. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, clove, pepper, milk, egg, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, clove, pepper, milk, egg, bread. 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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