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With Shrimp Sauce

Cod fillets simmered in water with lemon, then topped with shrimp sauce and garnished with shrimp, pickled walnut slices, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Shrimp and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,423 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

With Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the cod

  1. Boil water in a pot.

  2. Add coarse sea salt and squeeze in lemon juice.

  3. Gently simmer the cod slices in the water for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove the cod from the pot and place it on a hot dish.

Sauce and garnish

  1. Pour the shrimp sauce over the cod.

  2. Garnish with shrimp, pickled walnut slices, 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. Shrimp + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Shrimp + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sauce + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod fillets
Forms the main body of the dish, staying moist and flaky when gently poached.
Shrimp sauce
Adds rich, savoury seafood flavour and moisture over the cod.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the seafood flavour and balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Gently simmer the cod. Keep the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Vigorous boiling toughens the proteins in fish and breaks the slices apart, while gentle heat lets them cook evenly and stay tender.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, sauce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, 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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