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Beoiled Salt Fish

Broiled salt fish seasoned with pepper and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Beoiled Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the salt fish in cold water for 24 hours, changing the water 2 or 3 times, or use warm water for a shorter soak, changing the water and parboiling slightly.

  2. Drain and dry the fish.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the fish briskly for about 10 to 12 minutes.

  2. Season with pepper and a little salt if needed, then pour on melted butter.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  2. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt fish
Is the main ingredient; soaking draws out excess salt so it can be eaten.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, moistening the fish as it is poured on.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt fish. Salt fish is heavily cured, so soaking long enough, with fresh water changes, draws out surplus salt. Too short a soak leaves the fish unpleasantly salty, while drying it well afterward helps it brown under the broiler rather than steam.

“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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