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Salt Cod, Commonly Called "salt-fish."

Salt cod prepared by soaking in water with vinegar, then gently heated and served with hard‑boiled egg garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,782 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salt Cod, Commonly Called "salt-fish."

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the fish.

  2. Soak the fish overnight in water with vinegar.

  3. After soaking, ensure the fish is clean.

Poach

  1. Place the fish in a fish kettle with enough cold water to cover it.

  2. Heat the water gradually, avoiding boiling to keep the fish tender.

  3. Skim the surface as needed.

Serve

  1. Drain the fish and place it on a napkin.

  2. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs cut into rings.

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 + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

  2. Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Vinegar and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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 cod
Is the main ingredient, whose firm flesh is softened by soaking and gentle heating.
Vinegar
Added to the soaking water, it helps soften the dried fish and adds a slight sharpness.

The step that matters

Heating the water gradually without boiling. Boiling toughens and breaks up the delicate flesh of salted fish, so gentle heating keeps it tender and moist while it cooks through.

“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.

More salt cod recipes

Stewed 11with Egg Sauce 10Boiled 9Egg Sauce for 7Chowder 7Creamed 6 See all 24 →

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