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Salt Codfish, with Eggs

A dish of salted codfish simmered with butter, cayenne pepper, onion, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Salt Codfish, with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the salt codfish into small pieces and soak in cold water, changing the water two or three times.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine the fish with ½ cup boiling water, butter, cayenne pepper, and chopped onion.

  2. Mix corn starch with a little milk, then add 1 cup of milk and pour over the fish.

  3. Stir constantly until the butter melts and the mixture is well cooked.

  4. Break 2 or 3 eggs into the mixture and serve hot.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,205 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Provides the main flavour and bulk of the dish.
Eggs
Set into the warm mixture, adding richness and body.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk so the mixture becomes creamy rather than watery.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the starch thickens.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the butter melts and the mixture is well cooked. Cornstarch thickens only when heated while stirred; if left still, it can clump or scorch on the pan bottom, leaving the sauce lumpy and uneven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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