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Slewed Cod

A cod dish cooked with white wine, butter, oysters, mace, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

  1. Lay the cod slices in a pan.

  2. Add the white wine, butter, oysters, oyster liquor, mace, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the bread crumbs and stew the mixture.

  4. Slightly thicken with flour 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

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

  2. White wine + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Oyster + breadtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,544 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oystertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Mace + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 dish, cooking gently in the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewing liquid.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour and tender texture to the stew.
White wine
Adds gentle acidity that brightens the flavour of the stewing liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so it clings to the fish and oysters.

The step that matters

Slightly thicken with flour before serving. Flour must be cooked to avoid a raw, pasty taste and lumps. Adding it gradually to the hot liquid and letting it simmer lets starch swell evenly, giving a light, smooth sauce rather than a floury or clumpy one.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, butter, oyster, pepper, bread, flour):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, butter, oyster, pepper, bread, flour. 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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