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Codfish Scalloped, with Mushrooms

A baked codfish dish layered with mushrooms, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Codfish Scalloped, with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble

  1. In a buttered dish, layer the codfish and sprinkle minced mushrooms between the layers.

  2. Moisten each layer with drawn butter and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Cover the top layer with drawn butter and then with bread crumbs.

  4. Dot the crumbs with small bits of butter.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake covered for 30 minutes, then uncover and brown the top.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its flaky, meaty body.
Drawn butter
Adds moisture and richness to each layer and helps the top brown.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture between the fish layers.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering the dish for the first 30 minutes. Baking covered traps steam so the fish heats through gently without drying out. Browning only after uncovering lets the crumbs and butter crisp and color without overcooking the fish beneath.

“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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