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To Crimp Cod the Dutch Way

Fresh cod is sliced, soaked in a salt-water brine, dusted with flour, then broiled or boiled and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Crimp Cod the Dutch Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Mix the pump water and coarse sea salt together in a large bowl.

  2. Take a live cod and cut it into slices 1.5 inches thick.

  3. Soak the cod slices in the saltwater mixture for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the cod from the saltwater and dry it well with a clean cloth.

  5. Dust the cod slices with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the cod or boil it in salted water for 5 minutes.

  2. Serve with your choice of sauce and garnish with horseradish and parsley.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  5. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Provides the firm, flaky flesh that makes up the dish.
Coarse sea salt
Salt in the soaking water seasons the fish and firms its texture before cooking.
Flour
A light dusting that helps the surface brown and gives a slightly crisp exterior.
Sauce
Adds savory, briny flavor that complements the mild cod.

The step that matters

Dry the cod well before dusting. Surface moisture stops the flour from adhering evenly and turns it gummy. A dry surface lets the flour brown and crisp rather than steam, and removes excess salty water.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, sauce, oyster, anchovy, shrimp, horseradish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, sauce, oyster, anchovy, shrimp, horseradish. 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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