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Stewed Cod

A cod stew with veal gravy, bread crumbs, and a sauce of anchovy essence, wine, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the cod

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.

  2. Gently boil the cod slices for 5 minutes, then lift them out and let them drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a wide stewpan, heat the veal gravy or broth.

  2. Add the cod to the stewpan and simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs and simmer for an additional 3 minutes.

  4. Mix the arrow-root, mace, cayenne, essence of anchovies, white wine, and lemon juice into the sauce.

  5. Boil the mixture for 2 minutes.

  6. Carefully lift out the fish with a slotted spoon, pour the sauce over it, and serve immediately.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Fish + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cod
Forms the flaky main body of the dish, cooked gently so it stays tender.
Veal gravy or broth
Provides the liquid base and savory body for the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the sauce slightly as they soak up liquid and simmer.
Arrow-root
Starch that thickens the sauce to a smooth, glossy consistency.
Essence of anchovies
Adds deep savory, salty umami flavor to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the thickened sauce for 2 minutes after adding the arrow-root. Starch must reach a boil to fully thicken and lose its raw taste, so the sauce sets properly and clings to the fish.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, veal, bread, pepper, white wine, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, veal, bread, pepper, white wine, lemon. 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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