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Stewed Dried Boiled Codfish with Egg Sauce

A stewed codfish served with a butter‑milk egg sauce over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Dried Boiled Codfish with Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the dried codfish overnight in water.

  2. Boil the codfish until tender, then remove from water and flake.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and add milk, stirring until combined.

  2. Add the flaked codfish to the sauce and heat through.

Serve

  1. Boil the potatoes until soft, then mash them.

  2. Serve the codfish with the egg sauce over the mashed potatoes.

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

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

  2. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried codfish
Forms the main body of the dish, providing its flaky texture and salty, savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the milk-based sauce, giving it a smoother mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and mild sweetness.
Potatoes
Mashed as a soft base that holds the codfish and sauce.
Eggs
Enrich the sauce and add body and flavor, as the record calls for an egg sauce.

The step that matters

Soak the dried codfish overnight. Dried cod is very hard and salty; a long soak rehydrates the fish and draws out salt, so it becomes tender and flakes properly instead of tasting harsh.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Leekfits less well

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