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Creamed Salt Codfish

Creamed salt codfish served over buttered toast or baked potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Creamed Salt Codfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cover the salt codfish with lukewarm water and let it stand until soft, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and stir until well blended.

  2. Gradually pour in the scalded milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the softened fish and the beaten egg, stirring to combine.

Serve

  1. Serve over slices of buttered toast or with baked potatoes.

  2. For variety, mix in grated mild cheese.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 codfish
Provides the main savoury flavour and the flaked texture of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy body.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the sauce as it thickens with the fish.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and forms the roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Adding the egg to the sauce. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or scramble if the sauce is boiling hot. Stir the beaten egg in gently and keep the heat low so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg, cheese. 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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