Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Salt Fish

Salt fish is soaked to remove salt, then gently simmered and served with egg sauce and boiled parsnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Boil Salt Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the very salt, dry fish for a night in a large quantity of cold water.

  2. Let the fish lie exposed to the air for some time.

  3. Put it back into water and repeat soaking and airing until it is well softened.

  4. Brush the fish very clean.

  5. Wash the fish thoroughly.

Cook the fish

  1. Put the fish with abundance of cold water into the fish kettle.

  2. Place the kettle near the fire and heat very slowly.

  3. Keep it just on the point of simmering, never allowing it to boil.

  4. Clear off the scum with great care from the beginning.

  5. Cook from three quarters of an hour to a full hour, according to its weight; use less time if it is small and thin.

Serve

  1. Dish the fish upon a hot napkin.

  2. Serve with egg sauce and boiled parsneps.

  3. Sometimes strew the fish thickly with chopped eggs.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

118Calories
1 gProtein
12 gFat
3 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 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 cod
Salt curing is what the soaking and airing gradually undo to soften the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce served with the fish.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the fish and sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the water just below a simmer. Boiling agitates and breaks up the delicate flakes of fish and drives the scum into the liquid, so gentle heat keeps the fish moist and intact.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes