Skip to main content
Main

Cod Steaks with Tomato Puree

Cod steaks served with a tomato puree sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cod Steaks with Tomato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Dry the fish with a cloth and sprinkle the undersides with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Place the fish on a buttered plate, cover with another plate, and set it over a saucepan of boiling water for 30 minutes until the fish leaves the bone.

  3. Lift the fish onto a towel to drain, then place it on a hot serving dish.

Make the tomato puree

  1. In a pan, warm the butter and fry the sliced tomatoes and onion.

  2. Add the flour, seasonings, and a small cup of the fish liquid, and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve, return it to the saucepan to heat, and pour it over 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 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cod steaks
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently to flake away from the bone.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity, and break down into the body of the puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the tomatoes and onion fry gently.
Flour
Thickens the puree so it coats the fish rather than running off.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and mild sweetness as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Poaching the fish until it leaves the bone. Fish protein sets firmly once it is cooked through, so overcooking squeezes out moisture and leaves it dry and tough. Check at the stated time and remove it as soon as it parts from the bone.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, flour, onion, pepper, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, onion, pepper, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes