Name: To Dress a Salt Cod
Ingredients: salt cod; water; ½ cup vinegar; egg sauce; parsnips; butter; cream

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Dress a Salt Cod

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the salt cod in water overnight with vinegar to remove salt and enhance flavor.
Boil the cod until cooked through.
Remove the skin and flake the fish into a serving dish.
Pour egg sauce over the fish or serve with boiled and mashed parsnips mixed with butter and cream.
Serve on a warm plate to keep it 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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Swap the parsnip

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

Mustardfits better
Shallotfits better
Horseradishfits better
Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, sauce, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.