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Codfish — Maitre D' Hotel

Fried codfish slices served with a lemon‑parsley butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Also mentioned in the method: fish

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the codfish and cut each slice into two pieces.

  2. Season the fish with salt and pepper, then dust with flour.

  3. Dip the pieces in beaten eggs and coat with cracker crumbs.

Fry and dress

  1. Fry the fish in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter. Mix in lemon juice, parsley, and nutmeg.

  3. Spread the dressing over the hot fish and serve.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, tender pieces.
Eggs
Bind the flour and cracker crumbs so the coating adheres to the fish.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-browning crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the lemon and parsley flavours into the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and mild fish.

The step that matters

Fry the fish in hot fat until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping quickly. Fish cooked too long dries out and becomes tough, so it should be taken out as soon as it is golden and cooked through.

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Dillabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, egg, butter, lemon, parsley. 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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