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Boiled Codfish

A boiled codfish wrapped in flour‑dusted linen, served with a butter‑flour‑egg sauce and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the codfish in cold water with a little salt for 30 minutes.

  2. Wipe the fish dry.

  3. Wrap the fish in a clean linen cloth that has been dredged with flour. Sew the cloth edges to fully envelop the fish without overlapping.

Cook the fish

  1. Place the wrapped fish in a kettle with enough water to cover it.

  2. Bring the water to a brisk boil.

  3. Cook the fish for 1 hour, or until done, depending on thickness.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1/2 cup boiling water and 1/2 cup milk. Heat the mixture until scalding.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter gradually until melted.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of flour mixed with cold water. Stir the sauce until it thickens.

  4. Stir in 2 beaten eggs.

  5. Season the sauce with salt and chopped parsley. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  6. Remove the sauce from heat. Add capers to the sauce.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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, supplying flaky, mild protein.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they set, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by swelling with heat, giving it body.
Milk
Adds liquid and milk proteins that make the sauce creamy and mellow.

The step that matters

Bringing the egg sauce to a boil after adding eggs. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat, but if the sauce boils hard after the eggs go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat gentle once the eggs are added.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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