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To Stew Cod

A cod stew with wine, lemon, oysters, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

To Stew Cod

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the cod slices in the bottom of a large stewpan.

  2. Season with nutmeg, beaten pepper, coarse sea salt, sweet herbs, and onion.

  3. Add white wine and water, cover, and simmer gently for 5 to 6 minutes.

  4. Squeeze in lemon juice, add oysters and strained liquor, and mace.

  5. Cover and let it stew gently, shaking the pan often.

  6. Remove the sweet herbs and onion, then serve with sauce poured over and garnish with lemon.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the main body of the stew and flakes into tender pieces as it cooks.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, lifting the flavour of the broth.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the sauce as they cook.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 5 to 6 minutes. Cod is delicate and turns dry and tough when boiled hard. A gentle simmer cooks the fish through while keeping it moist and tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, pepper, white wine, lemon, oyster, mace):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, pepper, white wine, lemon, oyster, mace. 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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