Skip to main content
Main

To Bake a Cod’s Head

A baked cod head simmered with aromatics and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,557 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: fish

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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Fill a baking dish with water or broth. Add the onion, lemon peel, horseradish, black pepper, cayenne, nutmeg, and mace to the dish.

Bake the fish

  1. Prepare the fish as for boiling, without binding the head with tape.

  2. Place the fish in the baking dish, dredging the exposed part with flour. Dot the fish with butter pieces or lard it with bacon or salt pork.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Nutmeg + macetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + macetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod head (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming flaky and tender as it bakes.
Flour
Dredged on the exposed fish, it helps the surface brown and form a light crust.
Butter
Melts over the fish, adding richness and moisture to the surface as it bakes.
Bacon or salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the fish during baking.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent bite that mellows during baking.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, lemon, horseradish, pepper, nutmeg, mace, flour):

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, lemon, horseradish, pepper, nutmeg, mace, flour. 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.

You might also like

Illustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipesIllustration of Pork CakeIllustrationPork Cake107 recipesIllustration of Roast PorkIllustrationRoast Pork82 recipesIllustration of Mock Oyster SoupIllustrationMock Oyster Soup21 recipes