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Boiled Cod

A cod fillet boiled in salted water, then served with butter, lemon juice, and egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fish

  1. Wrap the cod in mosquito netting.

  2. Place it in a pot of boiling salted water.

  3. Cook for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the netting and place the fish on a hot dish.

  2. Rub the fish with butter and lemon juice.

  3. Top with 3 tablespoons of egg sauce and serve the rest in a separate dish.

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 + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Lemon + saucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Firm, thick flesh forms the main structure and flakes as its proteins set during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the fish feel moist on the plate.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavor of the fish and cuts through the butter.

The step that matters

Cooking for 1 hour. Fish proteins set as they heat and turn dry and tough when overcooked, so a long hour in boiling water needs close attention to avoid overcooking the fish.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sauce. 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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