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Salmi of Cod Fish

A baked cod fish dish with oysters, anchovies, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salmi of Cod Fish

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 the dish

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

  2. Line a flat dish with rough puff pastry and decorate the edges.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the flaked cod and oysters in the dish.

  2. Add the liquor from the oysters, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Arrange the sliced hard-boiled eggs on top.

  4. In a bowl, mix the cream, raw egg yolks, and anchovies.

  5. Pour the mixture over the fish.

  6. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 and sets to a flaky texture when baked.
Raw egg yolks
Bind with the cream to create a rich custard that sets during baking.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour and moisture that cooks into the fish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a mild, creamy richness to the filling.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, helping the egg yolks form a smooth, tender set.

The step that matters

Pour the cream and egg yolk mixture over the fish. Raw egg yolks set when heated, but if the mixture is poured unevenly or the oven is too hot, it can curdle or cook unevenly. Spreading it evenly helps it bind the fish into a uniform custard.

“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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