Name: Creamed Codfish with Poached Eggs
Ingredients: 1 cup picked codfish; 1 pint boiled milk; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; pinch of salt (if needed); 5 squares of toast; 5 eggs

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Codfish with Poached Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

Cover the codfish with boiling water and cook for 20 minutes.
Drain the water.
Add the boiled milk and cook for another 10 minutes.
Thicken the mixture with flour and butter.
Add pepper and salt if necessary.

Poach and serve

Prepare 5 squares of toast on a hot platter and spread the codfish mixture on top.
Place boiling water and 5 muffin rings in a frying pan.
Break an egg into each ring and cook for 3 minutes.
Remove the eggs with a skimmer and place them on top of the codfish.
Sprinkle lightly with pepper and salt.
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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 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).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Codfish: Provides the main savoury body and flavour of the creamed filling.
Milk: Forms the creamy base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, soft texture.
Flour: Thickens the milk mixture so it clings to the toast instead of running off.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to help thicken the sauce.
Eggs: Set when poached, adding a soft, rich topping that moistens the toast.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and milk long enough to swell and set the sauce. If it is added raw or left too short, the mixture stays thin or tastes floury.

“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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Creamed Codfish with Poached Eggs