Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Green Cod Lins, Frosted with Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare
Blanch the codlings in water with roche alum and vine leaves until nearly done.
Remove the outer skin from the codlings.
Frost and bake
Rub the codlings with oiled fresh butter and sift plenty of sugar over them.
Place the codlings on a clean baking sheet and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until the sugar sparkles like frost.
Serve
Let them cool, then serve in a trifle glass with perfumed cream around them.
Garnish each codling with a small flower.
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.
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Codlins
- The fruit forms the main body of the dish, softened by blanching while keeping its shape.
- Roche alum
- Alum firms the fruit's flesh during blanching so it holds its shape.
- Oiled fresh butter
- A thin fat coat helps the sugar stick evenly and adds a little richness.
- Sugar
- Sugar sweetens and dries into a crisp, sparkling frost in the oven.
The step that matters
Baking until the sugar sparkles. The oven must be slow enough to dry the sugar into a frosty crust without melting it into a syrup or overcooking the fruit until it collapses.
“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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