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Cod's Head

Baked cod head served with a sauce of wine, ketchup, shrimp, oysters, and butter, garnished with fried bread and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 25 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,557 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. 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

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 dish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub a baking dish with butter and place the cleaned cod's head inside.

  3. Add sweet herbs, diced onion, mace, black and white pepper, bruised nutmeg, lemon peel, horseradish, and water.

  4. Dust the cod's head with flour, grate nutmeg over it, dot with butter, and sprinkle with raspings.

  5. Bake in the oven until done.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the cod's head and place it in a serving dish over boiling water to keep warm.

  2. Pour the baking liquid into a saucepan and boil for 3-4 minutes.

  3. Drain the liquid, then add red wine, ketchup, shrimp, oysters, mushroom pickle, and butter rolled in flour.

  4. Stir and boil until thick, then pour over the cod's head.

  5. Garnish with fried bread, crispy parsley, lemon wedges, and scraped horseradish.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Mace + white peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod's head
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently in the baking liquid to stay moist.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and combined into the liquid.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour and tender texture to the sauce.
Shrimp
Add sweetness and savoury seafood flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce until thick. Butter rolled in flour must be stirred and boiled so the starch fully cooks and thickens the liquid. If it is not boiled long enough, the sauce stays thin and tastes raw-floury.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mace, pepper, white pepper, nutmeg, lemon, horseradish):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mace, pepper, white pepper, nutmeg, lemon, horseradish. 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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