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Salt Fish in Cream

A creamy codfish dish thickened with cornstarch, flavored with butter, parsley, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salt Fish in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the codfish by picking it from the bones and flaking it.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan until almost boiling.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with the milk until smooth.

  3. Gradually stir the cornstarch mixture into the heated cream.

  4. Add the butter, pepper, and chopped parsley to the cream mixture.

  5. Finally, add the flaked fish and bring to a gentle boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep dish and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Codfish
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the dish.
Cream
Forms the rich, smooth base that gives the dish its body and mouthfeel.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream as it heats, giving the sauce a smooth, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch mixture into the cream. Cornstarch clumps if added to hot liquid without being dispersed first. Mixing it with cold milk and adding it gradually to the warm cream lets the starch granules separate and thicken evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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