Skip to main content
Main

Salt Cod

Salt Cod Cakes are fried or boiled cod mixed with mashed potatoes, butter, and seasonings, then shaped into cakes or balls.

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

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 ↓

Salt Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the picked salt cod overnight.

  2. Remove all bones from the cod.

Make the cakes

  1. Mix the cod with an equal quantity of mashed potatoes, butter, and pepper.

  2. Form the mixture into cakes or balls.

  3. Dust lightly with flour.

  4. Fry until brown.

Alternative method

  1. Alternatively, boil the soaked cod in fresh water for about 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the water.

  3. Stir in sweet milk or cream, beaten egg yolks, butter, and pepper.

  4. Add a sprinkle of flour and stir for a few minutes until well mixed.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

Salt cod
Provides the main flaky, savoury body of the cakes.
Potatoes
Starch binds the mixture and gives the cakes a soft, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, moisture and flavour.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness to the texture.
Sweet milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Soak the salt cod overnight. Salt cod is heavily salted for preservation, and soaking draws out the excess salt and rehydrates the fish. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the cakes too salty and the fish firm rather than tender.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes