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Codfish and Potatoes-bouillabaisse of Cod

A fish stew of cod and potatoes simmered with leeks, herbs, saffron, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Codfish and Potatoes-bouillabaisse of Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped leeks or onion and cook until golden, but not burnt.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of water.

  4. Add the bunch of herbs.

  5. Add the saffron tied in muslin.

  6. Peel and add the potatoes.

  7. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Cook the fish

  1. When the potatoes are nearly cooked, cut the cod into slices.

  2. Add the cod slices to the pot.

  3. Cook slowly for 20 minutes.

  4. Remove the fish and place it on a hot dish with the potatoes around it.

Finish and serve

  1. Season the broth.

  2. Bring the broth to a boil.

  3. Strain the broth over slices of bread in a hot dish before serving with the fish.

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. Potato + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Leek + saffrontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + saffrontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Leek + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together848 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Murray cod
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flakes as it poaches in the broth.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth slightly as they cook and add starch that gives body to the dish.
Leeks or onion
Build a sweet, savoury base as they caramelise gently in the melted butter.
Butter
Carries the aromatics' flavour and adds richness to the broth.
Saffron
Adds a distinctive golden colour and floral aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Cook the leeks or onion until golden, not burnt. Browning sugars in the butter builds sweet, savoury flavour, but burnt pieces turn bitter and taint the whole broth, which cannot be fixed later.

Swap the saffron

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, leek, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, leek, butter. 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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