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To Crimp Cod the Dutch Wat

A method of preparing cod by crimping and cooking it in salted Dutch water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 562 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Crimp Cod the Dutch Wat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the pure water and coarse sea salt in a large bowl.

  2. Cut the live cod into slices 1.5 inches thick.

  3. Soak the cod slices in the saltwater mixture for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the cod and dry it well with a clean cloth.

  5. Dust the cod slices with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the cod or boil it in salted pure water for 5 minutes.

  2. Serve with your choice of sauce and garnish with horseradish and parsley.

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. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + horseradishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod fish
Main protein; its flesh firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish during the brine soak and firms its flesh.
Flour
Dusted onto dried slices, it helps the surface brown and forms a light coating.

The step that matters

Drying the cod well. Surface moisture left after the brine soak keeps the flour from sticking evenly and prevents the surface from browning well, so the slices should be patted fully dry before dusting.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, oyster, horseradish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, oyster, horseradish. 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.

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