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Beandade of Cod Fish

A creamy cod fish dish garnished with lemon, buttered bread, and prawns or shrimps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Beandade of Cod Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cod cream

  1. Flake the boned meat from the boiled salt cod.

  2. Put the flaked cod and a little cream into a saucepan over very low heat.

  3. Stir continuously with a spoon while slowly adding oil in single drops.

  4. Continue stirring until the mixture forms a thick cream.

  5. Add a bruised clove of garlic for extra flavor, if desired.

Plate and serve

  1. Arrange the mixture in a pyramid on a dish.

  2. Decorate with sliced lemon and buttered bread sippets.

  3. Garnish with prawns or shrimps.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lemon + garlictop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

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

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Boned salt cod
Provides the main flaked body and savoury flavour of the dish.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the cod blends into a smooth mixture.
Oil
Emulsifies into the cod and cream, thickening the mixture into a creamy texture.
Bread sippets
Adds crisp, buttery contrast to the soft cod cream.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly while stirring. Oil added in single drops and stirred constantly can emulsify into the warm cod and cream, giving a thick, smooth texture. Adding it too fast or over too much heat can split the mixture and leave it greasy and loose.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cream, lemon, bread, butter, shrimp, garlic):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cream, lemon, bread, butter, shrimp, garlic. 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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