Why it works: Tomato and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,164 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
The recipe
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 cod
Soak the codfish overnight in cold water.
Boil the codfish in cold water for 40 minutes.
Remove the bones from the codfish and let it cool.
Make the sauce
Prepare a good tomato sauce (see recipe).
Chop the sweet pepper and add it to the sauce.
Fry the onions and garlic in the olive oil, then add to the sauce.
Fry the croutons
Cut the croutons from the soft part of the loaf and fry them in boiling oil.
Bake and serve
Place the codfish into the tomato sauce and heat thoroughly in a deep dish in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes.
Serve in the same dish with croutons arranged around as a border.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,164 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,030 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + tomatotop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together14,075 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + olivetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together23,449 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,913 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dried salt codfish
- Forms the main body of the dish; soaking and boiling rehydrate and soften it for eating.
- Olive oil
- Carries the onion and garlic flavour and enriches the sauce with fat.
- Onion
- Adds savoury sweetness and depth as it softens and browns in oil.
- Garlic
- Contributes sharp aroma that mellows and sweetens when fried gently.
- Tomato sauce
- Provides moisture, acidity and the base flavour that the fish heats in.
The step that matters
Soak and boil the codfish fully. Dried salt cod is very salty and firm; thorough soaking draws out salt and boiling softens the flesh, so skipping or shortening either leaves the fish harsh and tough.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, tomato, sauce, pepper, olive):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Eggplantabout as good a flavor fit
- Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, tomato, sauce, pepper, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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