Name: Milk or Cream Codfish
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon salt codfish, very fine; ½ cup milk or thin cream; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon flour or corn-starch; a little milk (for wetting); 1 slice of bread (for toast)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Milk or Cream Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Boil the salt codfish in cold water until fresh, then drain.
If the fish remains very salty, repeat the boiling step.

Make the sauce

Pour ½ cup of milk or thin cream over the fish.
Add 1 tablespoon of butter and ¼ teaspoon of pepper.
Mix 1 teaspoon of flour or corn‑starch with a little milk, then add to the mixture.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then serve over a slice of dipped 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + flourtop 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).

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

Salt codfish: Provides the main savoury flavour and the flaky texture of the dish.
Milk or thin cream: Forms the liquid base that becomes the creamy sauce.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour or corn-starch: Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Desalting the codfish. Salt codfish must be boiled until it is no longer very salty, because salt is hard to remove once the fish is mixed into the sauce. Repeating the boil reduces saltiness, so the finished dish is not overpowering.

“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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Milk or Cream Codfish