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Slices of Cod a LA Parmentier

Slices of cod are cooked with Chablis, water, lemon juice, and a sauce of flour, butter, vinegar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and fish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,432 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Poach the cod

  1. Season the cod slices on both sides with lemon juice, white pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Place the cod in a stewpan with Chablis, water, and lemon juice.

  3. Cover the pan with buttered paper.

  4. Cook on low heat or in the oven for 20-25 minutes, depending on thickness.

  5. Drain the cod.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry flour and butter together until blended, without coloring.

  2. Add the cooking liquid to the flour mixture and stir until boiling.

  3. Combine vinegar, a dust of pepper, and bay leaves; reduce to half.

  4. Add egg yolks to the vinegar mixture and stir in a bain-marie until it thickens.

  5. Combine the egg mixture with the sauce.

  6. Stir well.

  7. Strain through a tammy.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cod in a circle on a hot dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the cod.

  3. Fill the center with fried potato straws.

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. Butter + fishtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,432 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + fishtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,855 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + white peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,657 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + eggtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together118,511 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set when gently heated, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Flour
Forms a roux with butter that thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and combines with flour to form the thickening base.
Cod
Provides the flaky white fish that forms the main body of the dish.
Chablis
Adds acidity and aroma to the poaching liquid, flavoring the fish gently.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg yolks in the bain-marie. Egg yolks set between about 65 and 85 degrees Celsius and can scramble if overheated. Gentle, indirect heat and constant stirring keep the sauce smooth and creamy.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, butter, flour, fish, vinegar, egg):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  3. Dillbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, butter, flour, fish, vinegar, egg. 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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