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Cod a LA Seville

A cod dish cooked with rice, onion, tomatoes, lemon, and fish broth, finished in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,164 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice and cod

  1. Wash and dry the rice.

  2. Heat olive oil in a frying pan.

  3. Add the rice and fry lightly.

  4. Drain the rice and place it in a stew pan.

  5. Fry the cod slices in the same oil.

  6. Drain and place them on the rice.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the oil again.

  2. Add sliced onion and tomatoes.

  3. Simmer for a few minutes.

  4. Pour the onion and tomato mixture over the fish.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  6. Moisten with fish broth.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with buttered paper and the lid.

  2. Cook in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or by the stove.

  3. Once done, remove the fish and keep it hot.

  4. Stir the rice, tomatoes, and onion together.

  5. Place on a hot dish.

  6. Top with the fish.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,990 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Rice + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,838 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the broth and oil, becoming tender and flavourful as the dish cooks.
Cod
Forms the main protein, firming as it fries and then gently cooks through in the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce as it softens while simmering.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and moisture that combine with the onion into the sauce.
Fish broth
Moistens the dish and carries flavour through the rice during cooking.

The step that matters

Frying the rice lightly. Lightly frying rice in oil coats the grains, helping them stay separate and keeping them from turning gluey as they absorb liquid.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, olive, tomato, pepper, lemon, fish, butter):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, olive, tomato, pepper, lemon, fish, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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