Skip to main content
Main

Codfish in Cream

A codfish dish simmered in milk and cream, thickened with flour and butter, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Shred and soak the codfish overnight.

  2. Drain the codfish and cover it again with water.

  3. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. Add the milk to the codfish.

  2. Rub the flour smooth in the butter.

  3. Add the flour-butter mixture to the hot mixture along with the minced hard-boiled egg.

  4. Add pepper and minced parsley.

  5. Boil once.

  6. Serve on rounds of 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Codfish
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its savory flavor.
Rich milk
Makes the liquid base of the cream, adding moisture and richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth cream as it heats.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour blend smoothly.
Egg
Adds body and richness to the cream once it is cooked.

The step that matters

Add the flour-butter mixture to the hot mixture. Flour clumps if it goes into liquid unevenly. Rubbing it smooth into the butter first helps it disperse, so the cream thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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

More cod in cream recipes

Salt 3 See all 7 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes