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Boiled Codfish and Oyster Sauce

A boiled codfish served in a sauce made from oysters, butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Boiled Codfish and Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the fish in cold salted water for 30 minutes before cooking.

  2. Dredge the fish in flour and wrap it in a clean cloth, sewing the edges to fully enclose it.

Boil the fish

  1. Place the wrapped fish in boiling salted water with cloves, peppercorns, and lemon peel.

  2. Cook until the fins pull out easily, indicating the fish is done.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. For the oyster sauce, scald the oysters in hot oyster liquor, then remove them.

  2. In the liquor, add salt, pepper, mace, and butter.

  3. Whisk in milk mixed with flour.

  4. Simmer briefly.

  5. Add the oysters back.

  6. Serve in a sauce-boat.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently in simmering water until flaky.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour to the sauce and tender texture when scalded and returned.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce, mellowing the saltiness of the oyster liquor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce and helps coat the fish during wrapping.

The step that matters

Whisking the milk and flour into the sauce. Flour mixed with milk must be whisked in smoothly and simmered briefly; otherwise it can clump, and the starch needs gentle heat to thicken fully and lose its raw taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, clove, lemon, oyster, fish, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, clove, lemon, oyster, fish, pepper, butter. 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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