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To Cook Cod-fish

A stew of cod fish, boiled eggs, potatoes, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Cook Cod-fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the cod fish overnight.

  2. Boil the cod until fully cooked.

  3. Remove the meat from the bones.

Make the stew

  1. Mash the potatoes and add them to a stew-pan with the cod meat.

  2. Add hot water, salt, and mustard.

  3. Boil for half an hour.

  4. Roll the butter in flour and add it to the stew before serving.

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. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Cod fish
Forms the main body of the stew, providing flaky protein and savory flavor.
Potatoes
Mashed into the broth, they thicken the stew and add body.
Butter
Rolled in flour and stirred in, it adds richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Coats the butter and helps thicken the stew as it melts into the liquid.

The step that matters

Roll the butter in flour and add it to the stew before serving.. Flour-coated butter added at the end thickens the stew gradually and enriches it; if added too early or stirred too hard, the flour can clump and the sauce can turn greasy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, potato, butter, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, potato, butter, flour. 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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