Name: Milk or Cream Codfish
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon salt codfish, finely chopped; ½ cup milk or thin cream; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon flour or cornstarch; additional milk for wetting; 1 slice of bread for toast

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Milk or Cream Codfish

Ingredients

1 tablespoon salt codfish, finely chopped
½ cup milk or thin cream
1 tablespoon butter
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon flour or cornstarch
additional milk for wetting
1 slice of bread for toast

Directions

Prepare the codfish

Freshen the salt codfish by boiling it in cold water, then draining.
If very salty, repeat the boiling process.

Make the sauce

Once drained, pour over the codfish the milk or cream.
Add the butter, pepper, and a thickening made from the flour or cornstarch mixed with a little milk.
Bring the mixture to a boil.

Serve

Serve over a slice of dipped toast.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Salt codfish: Provides the main savoury flavour and firm, flaked texture once freshened.
Milk or thin cream: Forms the liquid base of the sauce and gives it a creamy, mellow body.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour or cornstarch: Thickens the milk so the sauce coats the codfish instead of running thin.

The step that matters

Freshening the codfish. Salt cod is preserved heavily in salt, so soaking and boiling draw out excess salt. Skipping or shortening this leaves the dish overly salty, and repeating the boil when the fish is very salty is what keeps the final flavour balanced.

“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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White Bread80 recipes

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Milk or Cream Codfish