Name: Creamed Codfish on Toast
Ingredients: 1 cup shredded codfish; 2 cups water; 1½ cups sweet milk; 1 teaspoon butter; ½ teaspoon pepper; 1 beaten egg; Rounds of toasted bread

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 ↓

Creamed Codfish on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the codfish

Boil the codfish in water for 20 minutes.
Pour off the water and add the sweet milk, butter, pepper, and beaten egg.

Simmer and serve

Simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve the mixture on rounds of toasted bread.

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).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 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

Codfish: Provides the salty, flaky main flavour and the body of the dish.
Sweet milk: Adds moisture and creaminess, so the mixture stays soft rather than dry.
Beaten egg: Sets with gentle heat during simmering, thickening the mixture and binding it together.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer after adding the egg. Egg proteins thicken as they heat, but high heat or a hard boil can overcook them, making the mixture grainy or curdled. A gentle simmer lets it thicken evenly.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

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Creamed Codfish on Toast