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Crimp Cod

Cod fillets are boiled, coated with an oyster and breadcrumb forcemeat, rolled, baked, and served with oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Crimp Cod

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cod

  1. Wash the cod fillets thoroughly.

  2. Soak them in warm water for 30 minutes, then scrape and clean.

  3. Boil the fillets in milk and water until tender, but not too soft.

Make and roll the fillets

  1. Let them cool, then prepare a forcemeat with chopped oysters, breadcrumbs, butter, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and egg yolks.

  2. Spread the forcemeat thinly over the fillets and roll them up like chickens, securing with skewers.

Roast and serve

  1. Dust with flour and roast in a 300°F (150°C) oven until cooked through.

  2. Serve with oyster sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, becoming flaky and tender when gently cooked.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat and help it set as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, moister texture in the filling.
Milk
Poaching liquid that keeps the fish tender and adds a mild creaminess.
Flour
Dusted on the outside to help the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Boil the fillets until tender, but not too soft. Cod flakes apart easily once overcooked, and the fillets are cooked again in the oven, so stopping at tender keeps them intact when rolled and roasted.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, pepper, egg, flour, oyster, sauce):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper, egg, flour, oyster, sauce. 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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