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Cod Fish for Breakfast

A cod fish breakfast dish cooked with butter, cream, flour, egg, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cod Fish for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Remove all bones from the cod fish.

  2. Place the fish in a frying pan covered with cold water.

  3. Heat gradually and simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Drain the fish.

Make the sauce

  1. Add pepper, butter, and cream or milk to the pan.

  2. Reserve a little of the liquid for the flour.

  3. Gradually rub the flour into the reserved liquid to keep it smooth.

  4. When the mixture begins to simmer, add the flour mixture.

  5. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes.

  6. Stir in the beaten egg.

  7. Transfer the dish to a platter and serve.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the main body of the dish as flaked, shredded fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds moisture and creaminess.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce when mixed smooth and heated.
Beaten egg
Enriches the sauce and helps bind it as it is stirred in.

The step that matters

Rubbing the flour into the reserved liquid. Flour clumps when added directly to hot liquid. Blending it first into a small amount of cool liquid spreads the starch evenly, so it thickens the sauce smoothly once heated.

“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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