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Codfish on Toast

A dish of boiled codfish mixed with milk and egg, seasoned with parsley and cayenne, served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Codfish on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the codfish

  1. Boil the minced codfish in milk for 10 minutes.

  2. Thicken the mixture with the beaten egg.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the chopped parsley and cayenne pepper.

  2. Pour the codfish mixture over small pieces of buttered 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.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Milk + parsleytop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,011 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 and provides its savoury flavour.
Milk
Cooks the codfish gently and gives the mixture a soft, creamy moisture.
Egg
Sets with gentle heat and thickens the mixture into a spoonable binding.
Buttered toast
Serves as the base that soaks up and carries the codfish mixture.

The step that matters

Thickening with the beaten egg. Egg proteins set with gentle heat and thicken the mixture. If the mixture is too hot or the egg is poured in too fast, the egg can scramble into lumps, so add it slowly while stirring.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, pepper. 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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